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The Frankfurt Kitchen changed how we cook—and live

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  1. patience_limited
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    Today is historical architecture day for me, purely by happenstance. Design of everyday things, the "99% invisible", is critical for understanding how we live and consume. I've lived and cooked...

    Today is historical architecture day for me, purely by happenstance.

    Design of everyday things, the "99% invisible", is critical for understanding how we live and consume.

    I've lived and cooked professionally in several places with Frankfurt-style railway or galley kitchens. They're incredibly efficient, even if isolating. A modern suburban kitchen is a more social space, but excessive work for people whose paid jobs preclude extended hours of cooking and cleaning.

    The presentation of how the kitchen evolved from servant or shared spaces to a showplace of middle-class prosperity is another view of how sociology, economics, and architecture interact.

    There's an interesting side-note in the story about how the rise of National Socialism in Germany, with its "Children, Kitchen, Church" anti-feminism, demolished the ideal of a utilitarian kitchen for women who worked outside the home.

    2 votes