Refurbishing modernism
Bennett Tucker | The New Criterion | 12th November 2025
In the early 20th century, new ideas were crowding into furniture design. The arts and crafts movement espoused truthfulness in materials. The Bauhaus embraced industrial materials. Frank’s pioneering home designs emphasised neither luxury nor modernist simplicity, but comfort. Interiors, he said. should be casual with a “warm and eclectic atmosphere”. A dining table setting by a Frank acolyte combines “comfort, luxury and the minimalist ethos of the Bauhaus”. Despite talk of design for the masses, nothing was cheap.