Has kitchen design lost its spark?
Kitchen designer and author, Ian Palmer questions whether a lack of ‘iconic’ design launches mean that the sector has lost its creative spark or whether, in fact, inspirational design is actually all around us…
Words: Ian Palmer
I was asked recently why the kitchen industry doesn’t seem to produce iconic designs anymore.
But what exactly is iconic kitchen design really? And, when, if ever, did we ever have it? And, does design have to be iconic to be seen as good?
The original fitted kitchen – the Frankfurt kitchen – is almost a century old. Rightly or wrongly, because in 1926 the kitchen was very much deemed the woman’s room of the home, the design and layout of the Frankfurt kitchen was aimed at improving women’s lives – and as form follows function, its character, eclectic yet somehow homogenous, came out of utility. It was domestic engineering, for optimum efficiency. It was of a piece, too, for replication in cookie-cutter apartments.
Similarly original, I’d say, is the all-metal English Rose kitchen, which came about when WW2 aircraft manufacturers were looking for post-war work. An English Rose kitchen is not of a piece but modular and its uniqueness is the cabinet profile. It probably helped that, back then, they didn’t have to worry about accommodating built-under ovens or integrated dishwashers, because there were none.
If there’s anything approaching the social importance of the Frankfurt kitchen in recent decades, it’s in accessible kitchens. The intelligent mechanisms can transform lives, but we’re not going to see these designs on catwalks.
In 2013, an Italian-born designer exhibited the “million-pound kitchen” in London. It wasn’t vast: the money went on materials like crystal and copper. But as a room design, its independent elements – an oven bank, a fridge bank, an island – reflected trends already well-established in kitchen design. Its biggest innovation, however, was the price.
I’ve been told that Siematic missed a trick by not patenting the original “gola” true-handleless principle, and that its new version, mitred with integrated lighting, is an attempt to correct that. True-handleless kitchen furniture is a revolution, redefining every cabinet, and although the concept is far from new, it’s still finding its way into the UK mass market, along with the new technical demands it imposes.
The next iconic design might be just around the corner. I can’t imagine what it might be – but that’s kind of the point, isn’t it?
Also, from mainland Europe comes a neo-brutalist, secret kitchen look we associate with certain Italian and German brands, like Poggenpohl. You walk around what looks like just a cube of stone to find that it’s actually a well thought out, practical and functional island; you slide a concrete panel aside that reveals a bank of ovens or a sink.
Boffi takes this concept even further into a loft-cum-factory-styled environment. These looks lean heavily on sliding and pocket door technology, which will surely be the next thing to reach the mass market. Again, we see the aesthetic depending on the technical aspect of design.
Sometimes it’s just a texture or a finish that catches on, like the current fever for fluted furniture and acoustic slats.
Iconic design doesn’t announce itself so much as it’s announced to us. Because every kitchen is a new start, somebody might come up with something inspired anywhere, at any time. The key word in the original question is ‘seems’. Could it be we’re actually surrounded by iconic kitchen designs, but we don’t always get to hear about it or see it.
We’re salespeople. We design not for galleries, but for our domestic clients, with their individual tastes, needs, spaces and budgets. We are sales-led and client-led, not design-led, and few enjoy such status that we can sell something truly original on the strength of our name. There is an upside though: the purchaser of iconic designs like the Eames chair doesn’t get to say, “it was designed for me”, while every kitchen buyer does.
Or perhaps we just need to be patient? The English Rose kitchen came twenty years after the Frankfurt. The next iconic design might be just around the corner. I can’t imagine what it might be – but that’s kind of the point, isn’t it?
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