The Modern Interior

(Wang) #1

the unique’, and what he called ‘models in the proper sense of the word’,


interiors, that is, which contained items that were, through mass produc-


tion, accessible to a large sector of society.^4


Although Christine Frederick’s rational kitchens, discussed in the


previous chapter, were based on the principles of efficiency and produc-


tivity, and similar objects appeared in all of them, she had stopped short


of advocating the principle of industrialized standardization. Instead she


had remained committed to the craft process. By the 1920 s, in Germany,


the question of ‘standards’ had emerged as an important issue however,


manifested, for example, in the formulation of the din(Deutsches Institut


für Normung) standards. It was within that climate that Grete Schütte-


Lihotzky developed her famous kitchen design, the standardized compon -


ents of which were manufactured in huge numbers. ‘The Frankfurt


Kitchen was a factory-assembled module delivered to a building site and


lifted into place by crane. Ten thousand were installed in the Frankfurt 151


The staff canteen at the Bijenkorf department store, The Hague, designed by P. L. Kramer,
1924 , illustrated in Wendingenin 1925.

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