Kitchen Essential

The typical, labour-saving American dream kitchen that brightened the austere lives of well- to-do families after the second world war, has hardly changed in concept since the 1950s when it was introduced into Britain. At that time it was a quantum leap forward from the 1930s style of labour intensive kitchens, when servants were more plentiful and cheap.

However, since the 1950s people’s lives in sophisticated societies have altered dramatically. Bulk buying is more prevalent — freezers, virtually unheard of 30 years ago, are now commonplace — microwave ovens are helping to revolutionise cooking habits, microchips are incorporated into dishwashers and washing machines. Leisure time is expanding and dictating how and when people eat both in and out of the home. These influences indicate the type of food we cook, what we use to cook with, the gadgets and small appliances for speed or economy, and the crockery we need to withstand the rigours of the dishwasher and/or the microwave.

Investment by the kitchen unit manufacturers in capital machinery and plant ensure that the basic carcase construction of units should not be radically altered.

A planned and fully fitted kitchen as we now use the term is a major household expenditure. Besides the expense of buying units and appliances, you may also be paying for an expert planner to design a kitchen that will fit the room, then an experienced joiner to fit the complicated units into the kitchen and to make sure that every appliance fits its housing unit and works. Plumbers and electricians will also be needed for extending pipe runs and installing a safe wiring system. Should you choose non-standard appliances or if your walls aren’t square, the fitter will know just how to overcome these difficulties, without you being aware that there were any. This is what good kitchen fitting is all about and is not something that the consumer is aware of.

Should you wish at a later date to change your built-in oven, or if your integrated fridge malfunctions, you will then realize how difficult it is to alter things. New models supersede the originals and often do not fit the first housing. If you are lucky enough to find an ingenious joiner who can modify the units, it will still cost a good deal in time and money. On the other hand, soon after fitting your kitchen you may have to move house, but you won’t be able to take the kitchen with you.

Computers and video cassette recorders are mostly sold for games, entertainment and business uses at the moment. We expect to see them put to more practical use in the kitchen. A flat video screen could display information on stocks of household goods, recipes, cassettes of cookery demonstrations, local community information, and where to obtain the bargain of the week. Controls for heating, lighting and air conditioning would also be within a central control panel in the kitchen.

Because of the delicacy of the equipment, a computer in the kitchen itself is not a practical possibility. Spill a cup of coffee over your keyboard and thousands of pounds of equipment is wrecked. With the speed of technological revolution we assume these mundane problems will be overcome.

Ideally, all electrical appliances should be connected to the household’s central computer to be controlled by the family. Faults in any machine can then easily be detected and possibly remedied before they become major.

With increased leisure time the male influence in the home will be greater. Home cooking will become a creative pursuit, rather than simply a way of keeping body and soul together. But if the male of the species is involved, he will not put up with the kitchen being tucked away in the corner of the house. Homes of the future will be built without fixed internal walls. The tendency towards combining kitchen and dining room to form one large living area has been well established and is documented in this book. It now only remains for architects and builders to recognise the needs of the consumer and start building homes for people instead of for the drawing board. The kitchen of the future needs to be both mobile and flexible, in which equipment and siting can be changed when circumstances so demand.

Lateral-thinking designers are currently working on many ideas for future living. John Prizeman and George Fejer, two notable and leading practical designers, have been presenting revolutionary ideas in this field for twenty years, and gradually their concepts are becoming more acceptable as technology catches up with their ideas. Capsule kitchens, mobile work centres, cylinder kitchens, ‘touch controlled’ kitchens, will all find a place and these concepts are moving nearer and nearer to reality for the majority, rather than being an idealised image for the designer.

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