The Frankfurt Kitchen
citylab.com
citylab.com
Our kitchens have evolved with our foods. The 1950's taste for boiled whole vegetables and large roasts worked well in tiny kitchens. You didn't need much space for prep. The large and segmented cabinets organized everything out of sight because that made things look more clean.
Modern tastes require more prep space. More countertop for chopping vegetables. Enough room so you aren't slicing chicken breasts in the same area you are prepping the salad. Kitchens are also no longer the domain of the housewife. It is normal for multiple people to use a kitchen. So we need more space and better visibility. Cabinets have been replaced with shelves, or glass doors, because the person cooking is no longer always the person that does the shopping.
Stainless steel and better container tech means we are no longer ashamed of our kitchen utensils. We don't hide rusty pots or knives away in cabinets. We hang them proudly on hooks.
For many families, the kitchen has all but replaced the living room. Where does everyone gather in the morning for quick sandwiches before they all go off to work or school? The large table in the middle of the kitchen. Where does everyone gather again in the evening to eat supper and/or discuss any common business? The same table. Where do the kids do their homework? The table. Where do the parents check their email? The table. Where do we stick all the checklists and important bills? The fridge. Where are my clothes? The washer-dryer combo right next to the kitchen.
There's no reason not to use the kitchen as the default gathering space since everyone (not just the housewife) is already there; a gathering is more fun when there's food and drink; and as you mentioned, the kitchen can actually look good these days.
Suburban houses waste a lot of space, sure, but the kitchen is far from the worst offender. If I were designing a new house, I might as well eliminate the living room and put a huge kitchen/dining area in the center instead, leaving only a small den to use as the home theater.
If a door fails, getting a new one is not hard. Exchanging the work surface is usually totally doable. if some sink falls apart this is a bit more problematic, but also not a huge problem. Exchanging a fridge or a stove? Easy, as long as you don't buy the wrong size.
Of all the spaces I lived in the places that had the most broken kitchens, were always those where each element was seperatly movable, because having your stuff firmly mounted and reducing the places where liquid and dirt can go greatly improves the lifetime of the thing.
This is a European perspective tho, Americans might have different integrated kitchens, I am not that familiar with the differences there.
My current setup is like a galley kitchen except one wall is missing and opens onto the main living room, so I can prep or do dishes while talking to people. Maybe people more sensitive to cooking smells disagree, but I think kitchens are best when they aren't separate rooms.
Not for me - I'm not a professional chef, but I love cooking, especially meals for family and friends. In doing that it usually means people congregate in the kitchen (which is fun), but would cause havoc if it were compact.
I'd love a kitchen like the "dream" one - a Wolf burner, double open fridge, island for prepping, and space for people to be there, rather than crammed off in a corner to make it slightly more efficient.
Diff'rent strokes I guess!
EDIT: also, the Frankfurt kitchen seems optimised for actually "cooking", over and above other kinds of food prep. I'd take a massive worksurface for mixing and forming, over being closer to the oven or sink.
It works for restaurant kitchens. In my own, definitely not "dream" kitchen, I find I would like more space so that my prep area isn't also my pre-wash staging area and my stove isn't coating everything I need to store around it with steam.
Off-topic: I guess moderators learn about A LOT of stuff, simply by moderating. I guess that's a small perk for the job :)
(That's not a complaint! there are other advantages and it's a learning experience in many ways.)
It's unclear to me how Taylorism could have been applied in a transformative way to kitchen layout.
Part of the point of this article is also that the kitchen you take for granted, even one that isn't especially Taylorized, is still a sea change vs only a century ago.
And it totally paid off. Investing a few days of thinking and planing to avoid something that might annoy you for years to come is totally worth it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Stories
> Swedish efficiency researchers come to Norway to study Norwegian men, in an effort to help optimize their use of their kitchens.
https://www.1stdibs.com/furniture/storage-case-pieces/cupboa...