Back in July 2009 I wrote about the world’s oldest storage solution, a 14th century BC Japanese kitchen storage pot and sitting on my laptop here in the STORE staff kitchen full of natty kitchen storage ideas I started wondering about the origins of the fitted kitchen and just who came up with the idea of built-in storage cupboards etc.

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky

I think the world’s oldest fitted kitchen is probably The Frankfurt Kitchen which was designed by Austrian architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky in 1926 as an ergonomic low cost ‘one design fits all’ kitchen for the masses & which sought to provide adequate work and storage space for both cooking and laundry.

It seems to me that Schütte-Lihotzky was way ahead of her time, effectively inventing the modern fitted kitchen in a Eureka moment but her ideas were not just about good design, there was a lot of scientific thought behind the layout.

Perhaps influenced by the American Fredrick Taylor’s turn of the century papers on the scientific management of workflow (the process now commonly referred to as Taylorism), Schütte-Lihotzky careful studied routine kitchen tasks and designed the Frankfurt kitchen around the space and storage required for each chore.

The result IMHO was a masterpiece of decluttering the traditional domestic kitchen and included items such as food storage containers and jars that were always close to hand (near preparation areas) yet neatly tucked out of site.

At only 1.9m wide by 3.4m long, Schütte-Lihotzky had to be very clever with her use of kitchen storage and she incorporated a sliding rather than traditionally opening kitchen door into the design to maximise the space she could then use within the kitchen area.  Shown in the photo (on the left hand wall) there’s also a neat use of vertical storage space with a fold-down ironing board.

The right hand wall housed most of the food storage cupboards and included dedicated labeled storage bins/scoops for rice, flour, sugar etc. Amazingly (and don’t forget we’re talking 1926 here) this unit also container a recycling bin (actually it was a drawer) that food scraps could be brushed into and emptied afterwards.

The narrow galley-style layout, not so unfamiliar to lots of us today was not solely a result of space constraints, it was a conscious design decision on Schütte-Lihotzky’s part to minimise the number of steps needed when working within the kitchen….how very Tayloristic!

Perhaps however, the Tayloristic approach was in the end the downfall of the Frankfurt kitchen. Like Taylor himself who received strong reaction to his scientific management methods from factory workers who found the repetitive processes boring and “requiring little skill”, the Frankfurt kitchen was often described as not flexible enough. In developing a standard method for performing each kitchen or laundry task perhaps Schütte-Lihotzky had forgotten that we human beings are not all the same and operate in different ways. Another issue often cited was that the storage bins were too accessible by small children.

Despite these criticisms, the Frankfurt kitchen became a model for the modern fitted kitchen. Some 10,000 units were installed Frankfurt’s high-rises and as such it was a massive commercial success.

I love the look and design of the Frankfurt kitchen and the idea that way back in 1926 Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky was thinking about efficient use of space, decluttering the kitchen environment and kitchen storage solutions.

Four years ago the Victoria and Albert Museum acquired a Frankfurt kitchen for its traveling exhibition. The same year another sold for nearly £35,000! Sadly at the time of writing the V&A’s Frankfurt kitchen is currently in store but if you search the collections area of the V&A website there’s some great photos of their Frankfurt kitchen although I have to confess I think the V&A may have sourced the wrong kitchen chair as Schütte-Lihotzky original design had a revolving stool on castors for maximum flexibility!

Tags: storage solutions

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 22nd, 2010 at 5:49 pm and is filed under Random Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.