The Frankfurt Kitchen Changed How We Cook—and Live

There are “dream kitchens,” and then there’s the Frankfurt Kitchen, designed by architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky in 1926. She was the first Austrian woman to qualify as an architect. Following World War I, she was tasked with the design of standard kitchens for a new housing project. Her Frankfurt Kitchen was inspired by the efficiency of the tiny galley kitchens of railway dining cars.
In 1927 three versions of the kitchen were shown at a major Frankfurt exhibition and, in the ‘30s, it was written up in the German, English, and French press, attracting the attention of France’s housing minister, who wanted to commission 260,000 units inspired by its design.

Reconstruction of the Frankfurt Kitchen in the Museum of Applied Arts,Vienna
 Image: © Lois Lammerhuber/MAK Austrian Museum of Applied Arts

Monster "dream kitchens" have replaced Schütte-Lihotzky's model of culinary efficiency but are they actually better?  Whoever wrote these words might have had my kitchen in mind: "Big kitchens have dirty secrets: drawers full of lid-less Tupperware, jar upon jar of stale spices, never-used bundt pans."

Read more: CityLab

Via Miss C