TAG: COUNTER SPACE

Virgilio Forchiassin. Spazio Vivo (Living Space) Mobile Kitchen Unit. 1968

Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen addresses the role of the kitchen in 20th-century life. But what does modern design mean if you don’t have a kitchen? If you live, say, alone in a wagon in the Nevada desert? Or you reside in your taxicab, and you want Brazilian food that reminds you of home? Read more

Grete Schütte-Lihotzky’s 1926–27 Frankfurt Kitchen incorporated socialist ideology into its efficient design. But it assumed a private kitchen. During a brief period shortly afterwards, idealistic Soviet architects took the idea one step further, experimenting with communal kitchens. Read more

Nathaniel Longcope and Aidan O’Connor test out the live stream

As video-streaming technology becomes more ubiquitous, we’ve been antsy to try a walkthrough of an exhibition at MoMA. Department of Architecture and Design curator Juliet Kinchin and curatorial assistant Aidan O’Connor have been brave enough to be the first.

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Roberto Sambonet (Italian, 1924–1995). Center Line Set of Cookware. 1964. Stainless steel. Manufactured by Sambonet S.p.A., Vercelli, Italy. Gift of the manufacturer, 1972

Several exciting things are happening now in the world of Counter Space—time for an update! Read more

From left: Radford’s Details of Building Construction, 1911; Frankfurt Kitchen, 1926-27; Architectural Graphic Standards, 1941; Architectural Graphic Standards, 1951

It’s 1926 and, like Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, you want to design a functional kitchen. If you’re in the U.S. or Great Britain, you might then turn to a standards manual. At the time, there was Radford’s Details of Building Construction (1911). Then, five years after Schütte-Lihotzky’s Frankfurt Kitchen, two underemployed architects created an expanded manual more suited to 20th-century life. Their Architectural Graphic Standards (1932) has been continuously revised ever since. Read more

After viewing the exhibition Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen, our team at MoMA was inspired by the Frankfurt Kitchen’s impact on our modern-day experiences of preparing and sharing food in our homes. Read more

Here is a slideshow of photos from our hit Counter Space public program, Kitchen Culture. Over 100 people joined us for an incredible dinner in October, inspired by a 1925 German cookbook and prepared by Executive Chef Lynn Bound and the Cafe 2 team. Read more

One of a series of WWII propaganda posters in MoMA's collection encouraging the British home front to raise rabbits at home on a diet of kitchen scraps...and then eat them. Poster designed by Frederick H. K. Henrion (British, 1914–1990), c. 1941

Everyone likes rabbits. Their fluffy tails. Their twitchy noses. From Peter Rabbit to Roger Rabbit, Bugs Bunny to the Easter Bunny, Watership Down to David Lynch’s surreal 2002 series Rabbits, the creatures have been anthropomorphized constantly in literature, film, and popular culture. Because they are so widely appealing, we feel extremely uncomfortable when we see rabbits encounter cooking pots, like in Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero, or at the hands of Glenn Close as manic bunny boiler in Fatal Attraction. Small wonder then that during World War II the British Government had to persuade reluctant consumers about the nutritional and money-saving benefits of raising rabbits for food. Read more

Hungarian embroidered wall hanging. Translation from Hungarian: “You must do everything at the right time.” Collection Juliet Kinchin. Photograph: Roger Griffith

There’s always been a clock in my kitchen. I can’t imagine otherwise. I bet there’s been one in yours too. I’m not talking about the digital ones on the coffee maker, stove, microwave, etc. that I don’t even bother to set—I’m talking about the clock that’s been in charge of keeping time everywhere I’ve ever lived—my kitchen clock. Read more

Contestants competing in the Pillsbury Bake Off baking contest in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York. 1949. Source: Google/LIFE Photo Archive. Photograph by Lisa Larsen

At our recent Kitchen Culture event, a public program in conjunction with the Counter Space exhibition, over 100 people enjoyed an amazing dinner prepared by Executive Chef Lynn Bound of the Art Food cafés and the Cafe 2 team. (Video of the dinner and accompanying entertainment, plus an interview with Chef Lynn, to come in future posts!) The delicious meal was inspired by a recipe book, shown here, with significant ties to the centerpiece of our exhibition, the Frankfurt Kitchen. Read more