The fitted kitchen is celebrating 100 years since its invention by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky.
When Ernst May, architect and town planner, brought Schütte-Lihotzky – Austria’s first female architect – to Frankfurt as part of the New Frankfurt housing project, she was tasked with designing suitable kitchens that would, above all, meet the demands of the time: standardisation, faster, more cost-effective production, efficient use of space within a few square metres, as well as ergonomics, hygiene and ease of maintenance.
The aim was to coordinate the forms and functions of the kitchen so precisely that daily kitchen tasks could be carried out quickly and easily. What emerged, however, went far beyond these historical circumstances, with Schütte-Lihotzky’s Frankfurt Kitchen becoming the archetype of the modern fitted kitchen as we know it today.
Although the Frankfurt kitchen was installed in a large number of Frankfurt homes, only a few examples remain today, with just one restored example remaining in its original location: it can be seen in the Ernst May House, Frankfurt.
Pictured is a reconstructed Frankfurt kitchen from the design collection of the Ostwestfalen-Lippe University of Applied Sciences and the Lippisches Landesmuseum Detmold. It was installed in 1928 in a three-bedroom single-family row house in the Römerstadt housing development in Frankfurt and remained in use until 1995. It was subsequently removed during a home renovation and reconstructed 20 years later by the Detmold School of Design.
To mark the centenary, Hacker has released an anniversary tribute: the Limited Edition 1926. It will be available during the centenary year and features historical design elements at no extra cost: a selection of seven curated NCS colours, an integrated pull-out table and a built-in folding step.
