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THE THIRTEEN LETTERS OF JOSEF FRANK
Abstract
Josef Frank (1885-1967) certainly occupies a prominent place in the central European architectural scenery of the early twentieth century. His work is entirely devoted to living and of course, in addition to having designed furniture, furnishings and beautiful fabrics, Frank designs and creates architectures. The furniture and objects of furniture that he produces in Vienna at the beginning of the twenties, born on the idea of English furniture from which he takes inspiration to reinterpret the models and adapting them to new needs, perhaps throw a new light on the origins of that kind of furniture that we generally consider "Scandinavian". For Frank the language of architecture is not only a metaphor of the narration but could also become language in the strict sense; even to the point of substituting written text, as it happens for example in a singular correspondence exchange with a woman. The letters we refer to are instead those in which architecture, or better, its graphic representation, substitutes words to concretely undertake -not only conceptually- the value of prose, of the written text. Architecture that can sometimes even become an idiomatic mean of seduction, as it happens to a certain extent in the thirteen letters that Josef Frank sent to Dagmar Grill in 1947.
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References11
Luciano Semerani, Dalla tautologia alla banalità, in La casa isolata Dalla tautologia alla banalità, Venezia, Cluva Editrice, 1989, p. 18
Silvio Ramat, Giuseppe Ungaretti Lettere a Bruna, Mondadori, Milano, 2017
Viktor Matejka, Dodici domande a Josef Frank, in Josef Frank 1885-1967 Vita activa, Lint editoriale srl, Trieste, 2011 pp.158, 159
Christina Kruml, Tredici case per Dogmar Grill, in Percorsi accidentali Scritti e progetti di Josef Frank, Lint editoriale srl, Trieste, 2011 pp.128 a 161
Ibidem p.128
Aldo Carotenuto, Eros e pathos Margini dell’amore e della sofferenza, Ed. Saggi Bompiani, Milano, 1993, pp. 49-55
“Neuroaesthetics help in the knowledge of human brain in accordance with a unique perspective, one of body and of thought embodied by the experience of art and, generally, of beauty. This discipline can also help us understand why art has become so important for human species and how it can be interpreted in a evolutionary key, as an experience capable of transmitting, in fiction, emotions that are useful for survival…” Anna Livigni, Caravaggio fa scattare l’empatia, Il sole 24 ore, domenica 28/10/2018
Even though for many it was difficult to understand Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity (published 1915/1916), at first it was widely accepted thanks to the extreme beauty of its mathematical formulations. Paul Dirac, English physicists, wrote in 1933: “What makes the theory of relativity so acceptable by physicists, even though it works against the principle of simplicity, is its great mathematical beauty” Semir Zeki, Sesso bellezza ed equazioni, Trad. di Elisabetta Sirgiovanni, in Il Sole 24 Ore 23/4/2017
[9 Vincenzo Barone, Errori veri e presunti di Einstein, Il Sole 24 Ore, 30/7/2017, p.24
Even logical thought, as well as science, as it expresses itself, becomes feeling and fantasy. Which is the reason why books about philosophy, history or science can be not only truthful but also beautiful. They can be judged not only according to logic but also according to aesthetics. Sometimes they say a book is theoretically or critically or historically wrong, but it remains – because of the affection of the soul it expresses – in its capacity of work of art. Benedetto Croce, Breviario di Estetica, Aesthetica in nuce, Adelphi, Milano, 1994, p.224
Giovanni Fraziano, Joseph Frank 1885-1967 Vita active, Lint editoriale srl, Trieste, 2011 pp.10,11
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