The Beginnings of Kitchen Design

Today, many people who have the means to do so take it almost for granted that they can tailor the design of their kitchen specifically 
to their own needs. For a long time, however, kitchens were only minimally capable of meeting the 
needs of their users, and in fact, we can only speak of “kitchen design” from the early 20th century onward.

The American Christine Fredericks is considered the first “kitchen designer,” whose credo was as follows: 
“The kitchen must be designed around its user,” meaning the kitchen exists for its user and not the other way around. 
During her research, she observed that the proper placement of kitchen appliances greatly influences 
how easy or difficult it is to perform kitchen tasks. He therefore placed kitchen design on a scientific 
foundation and, based on his observations, concluded that the proper arrangement of kitchen equipment and utensils 
can reduce the duration of kitchen work processes by as much as 50 percent.

Kitchen design also emerged in Europe in the 1920s, thanks to the large-scale urban development in Frankfurt.  How are a city’s urban development and the evolution of kitchen design connected? 
In the mid-1920s, the process of urbanization accelerated significantly in Frankfurt, and it was necessary to provide 
a sufficient number of residential units for people moving in from rural areas; therefore, the city administration ordered the construction of vast, 
new residential districts. These buildings were constructed according to uniform, centralized plans, which stipulated that every apartment must have a 
kitchen area with a floor area of 6.5 m², which, despite its small size, had to be as practical as possible for performing kitchen tasks.

The Austrian interior designer, 
Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, was commissioned to design the standard layout for this small kitchen. The task was by no means easy, as her work was complicated not only by the kitchen’s small 
floor area but also by the instructions she received from the chief architect, Ernst May, who specified that the standard 
kitchen should be practical but constructed as inexpensively as possible. However, the Austrian interior designer 
perfectly fulfilled the request and indeed created a kitchen that makes practical use of 
the available space, yet is still cost-effective to build.

She placed the kitchen counter in front of the window, and positioned the stove and sink across from each other on the two opposite walls. 
Built-in cabinets were installed on the walls, featuring plenty of shelves and drawers that provided space for almost 
every kitchen item, from cutlery to the trash can; there was even a swivel chair placed in the middle of the kitchen, 
so that almost every kitchen task could be performed while seated. After World War II, the Frankfurt kitchen model 
became a standard in interior design throughout Europe and overseas as well, 
though only in terms of layout, since the Frankfurt model bore strong hallmarks of the Bauhaus artistic movement of the 1920s and 1930s. Although the basic,
standard layout remained, from the 1950s onward, kitchens began to take on more color, and the varnished, painted wood elements 
were replaced by other materials such as plastic, rubber, glass, or even stainless steel.

The Frankfurt kitchen model was so significant in the world of kitchen design that not only did this 
model become the basis for the standardization of kitchen design in Western countries, but the dimensions of the predecessors of the 
appliances and fixtures familiar in today’s kitchens were also adapted to this model.