[HN Gopher] The "Frankfurt Kitchen"
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The "Frankfurt Kitchen"
Author : tosh
Score : 60 points
Date : 2025-06-07 16:26 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (museumderdinge.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (museumderdinge.org)
| DocTomoe wrote:
| I grew up in Frankfurt/Main's Hellerhofsiedlung - and in the
| 1980s, a (smaller) variant of this was still the standard kitchen
| in those apartments. We moved out in the mid-1980s, when I was
| still a kid ... but the photo alone brings back memories (though
| ours had some 1970s-style 'Prilblumen'-chique[1]. Turns out "form
| over function" did not appeal to the audience... No architectural
| or industrial design act - but stickers! Popular subversion. A
| people's decor.)
|
| What this article does not go into depth in about is how related
| furniture was to kitchen appliances - e.g. the furniture had a
| built-in bread-cutter (think 'saw blade with a hand-jank').
|
| [1] Tried to find an article in English, but basically a
| dishwasher detergent company added flower-style stickers to their
| product - and that became a bit of a cultural movement in the
| 1970s/1980s. Related ad:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYpK0A6k5oQ
| detourdog wrote:
| This is the where I'm headed I have small run manufacturing
| set-up in the schools old gym. Thank you for the link(seemed to
| be dish soap commercial).
| eclecticfrank wrote:
| Its design exhibits a very dense funtional pragmatism that makes
| it look like a laboratory or even bomb shelter to me.
| detourdog wrote:
| I'm using a lot of wood to make reduce the coldness. The
| original kitchen was about rapid production at the lowest
| price. I only have to worry about 8 apartments and the
| manufacturing is on-site. I see this as way to bring humanity
| into modern design.
|
| My overall business plan is small run manufacturing to exact
| user specifications. The basic question I'm asking is "why
| should the dimension of our appliances be standardized."
| autobodie wrote:
| They aren't replying to you. I sure hope you don't berate
| your poor tenants like you are commenters in this thread.
| You're a landlord, not a hero.
| detourdog wrote:
| I have no idea what you are talking about. Please help me
| understand where you are coming from. I thought I was
| discussing my design choices against the original design
| and it's constraints.
|
| Some people seem to be offended that I'm commenting too
| much. Every comment I have made has been about the
| Frankfurt kitchen and how I have been inspired by it.
|
| If someone feels I have berated them please let me know.
| autobodie wrote:
| If you like the kitchen so much then build one for
| yourself?
| detourdog wrote:
| Haven't I demonstrated that I have built 8 of them?
|
| Now I understand where you are coming from.
| ginko wrote:
| If you're ever in Vienna you can visit Margarete Schutte-
| Lihotzky's own apartment she designed herself in the late 60s and
| lived in for her last 30 years.
|
| https://www.schuette-lihotzky.at/de/zentrum/die-wohnung/
| comrade1234 wrote:
| I live in a new modern apartment with a big open
| kitchen/dining/livingroom area that's very esthetic, but
| sometimes I miss my previous galley kitchen where I could stand
| in one spot and reach almost every pan, knife, etc. as I'm
| cooking.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| The entire new apartment and condo industry is built around
| attracting the largest buyer demographic during a 10min walk
| through. That buyer is a late 20s single (or otherwise
| unilaterally decision making) woman. Many millions have been
| spent on market research to figure out what these women want.
|
| This is why modern apartments have big bathrooms with copious
| flat space around the sink and good looking living spaces but
| when you actually live in them you'll find out there's not
| enough room to scoot around your wife's thicc ass while she's
| digging for something in the fridge or any attempt to host a
| party becomes an instant game of human bumper cars due to the
| traffic paths to the drinks, bathroom, main room. Many times
| you'll even find that these apartments can only be furnished
| with minimalist aesthetics while there is technically room for
| standard furniture and appliance sets they make the spaces
| unusable. Women don't get exited about the kind of "there's
| space on this wall for a 80" TV and if we put the beer on the
| left side of the fridge you can reach it without getting off
| the couch" and "look at all these kitchen cabinets, I'll never
| pull out a pan to find that it's dirty from oil/dust" raw
| practicality type stuff that men do and will happily trade it
| away to make a more aesthetic space. Men will also much more
| readily live in older construction and place less value upon
| "new" or "new-ish" so there's a healthy amount of "what new
| buyers want vs what used buyers want" discrepancy going on too.
|
| Source: Too much time listening to the guy who sells the
| cabinets for these new apartments.
| detourdog wrote:
| I specifically worked on traffic flow in the bathroom. Notice
| that it is almost a galley bathroom. The traffic flow is
| straight line and all the services are against a single wall.
| I failed on my bathroom sink counter in a couple of areas,
| but I can't to iterate on design.
|
| I wanted to get all the units finished before I start the
| redesign process. I have gotten good feedback from the users
| over the past 2 years. I'm about to post the last unit for
| rent. Once that is done I will start work on the refinements.
| 9dev wrote:
| That sounds... wildly specific to the US. The game is very
| different in Germany, where practically no one can afford to
| buy property in their late twenties, or if they can, it's not
| economically sustainable to do so.
|
| Most new apartments are strictly divided into tiers--singles
| and students in their early twenties with very little money;
| couples without children (yet), but lots of disposable
| income; families with one or two children, and a double
| income; and elderly couples. If you don't fall into these
| demographics, you're bound for a rough time.
| detourdog wrote:
| My market focus is on individuals that want a consistent
| monthly housing expense. I included the utilities in the
| rent which includes fiber optic internet. My thinking is a
| consistent expense for housing helps people starting out
| with their budgeting.
| autobodie wrote:
| It won't be consistent because you will be raising the
| rent every chance you get. Trust me.
| detourdog wrote:
| My first tenant which has been here over 3 years started
| at a discounted rate and is paying 20% less than my last
| tenant to move in. I have never raised there rent. The
| first tenant has not experienced a rent increase.
|
| These units are available for at will tenancy(no lease).
| My plan is to raise the rent on turn over rather than
| nickel and dime the existing tenants.
| autobodie wrote:
| That's what they all say.
| autobodie wrote:
| > _You 'll find out there's not enough room to scoot around
| your wife's thicc ass_
|
| > _That sounds... wildly specific to the US._
| wil421 wrote:
| I think 85% of home sales in the US are single family. So
| split up 15% between town homes and condos. OP is
| describing a small part of new properties. I assume you're
| talking about condos. What OP is talking about is more of
| what you describe, students, singles, and new families
| (with or without kids).
|
| There's a lot of active adult 55+ and no kid neighborhoods.
| I wonder how they compare to what OP describes, I've never
| been in one.
| detourdog wrote:
| My current crop of tenants run the range of early 20s to
| late 50's and is a mix between couples and singles.
| analog31 wrote:
| My mom's reaction when she was looking for an apartment to
| rent: "Nobody cooks any more."
| throw0101d wrote:
| See also Taylorism:
|
| > _Margarete Schutte-Lihotzky continued to design kitchens. Her
| mid-20th century designs incorporated electrical appliances
| while continuing to rely on methods for efficiency advanced by
| Frederick Winslow Taylor and Christine Frederick.[8]_
|
| *
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_kitchen#Influence_on...
|
| And perhaps:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_work_triangle
| nkrisc wrote:
| > big open kitchen/dining/livingroom area that's very esthetic
|
| Did you mean ascetic? I'm trying to figure out what you meant
| but I'm not sure, because ascetic kind of contradicts the other
| descriptors.
| detourdog wrote:
| Aesthetic
| eadmund wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that he meant 'aesthetic.'
| nkrisc wrote:
| That still doesn't make sense.
|
| Edit: just saw the other comment. I suppose they meant
| "aesthetically pleasing".
| SamBam wrote:
| Esthetic/aesthetic (US vs UK spelling) has become an
| adjective in recent years, meaning "pretty." My kids say
| "that's very aesthetic," which drives me up the wall, but I
| have to accept that language evolves.
| PyWoody wrote:
| I love galley kitchens. Another benefit is there isn't enough
| room for others to mingle, so they get out of the way by
| instinct.
| detourdog wrote:
| I just converted an old school into studio apartments. I took
| each classroom and added a kitchen and a bath. I based the length
| of the kitchen counter on a Frankfurt Kitchen(around 11'). I got
| a little overwhelmed by the project so the kitchen are pretty
| stark. I plan on adding details and functionality.
|
| https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B2dGlxzuqGlJoT7
| dakna wrote:
| Hey, this looks nice, great kitchen/bath module. How did you
| seal the plywood in the shower, just lots of clear coat? Or is
| this an epoxy layer? Thanks.
| detourdog wrote:
| Fiberglass and epoxy like a boat. The wood backing is 1.5
| millimeter 3 layer mahogany plywood.
| djoldman wrote:
| Laminate countertop and mahogany veneer plywood in the same
| project is wild. I assume these were the materials
| available? :)
| detourdog wrote:
| The shower is my effort to get away from tile which I
| find cold to the touch. I also wanted to minimize seams
| and corners. I have always liked white formica
| countertops. The only drawback is the it's ability to
| absorb heat. I don't like the cloudiness of corian.
|
| The 2.0 kitchen countertops will be made of white oak
| planks like a farm table top. This will be more durable
| than the formica.
| _ink_ wrote:
| That's really cool. You don't blog about this project
| somewhere, do you? I'd be interested in following the progress.
| detourdog wrote:
| I don't. I have had a domain since they were free and barely
| have a website.
|
| Here is a url with a lot of the construction photos.
|
| https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B2dGIcgc2GugpW3
|
| http://bbs.cogs.com
| boyka wrote:
| Frankfurt kitchen without a shower?
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| Why worry about a shower if you're not qualifying for the
| rental anyway?
| detourdog wrote:
| What does the mean?
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| A joke about renting an apartment in Frankfurt, or in any
| major German city.
| detourdog wrote:
| I get it now... sorry.
| detourdog wrote:
| The shower is around the corner I just uploaded the bathroom
| pictures to the same URL.
| SamBam wrote:
| I think the parent comment was referring to the original
| article. (You keep replying to comments throughout this forum
| as if people are talking about your personal project, which
| is confusing.)
| detourdog wrote:
| Sorry about that. I'm just excited to see something so
| relevent to what I'm working on. I'm trying to contrast the
| comments about the original with the details I considered
| while trying to modernize.
| throw0101d wrote:
| See also:
|
| > _The Neues Bauen architects were motivated by the desire to
| build healthy human settlements with access to clean air and
| light. Purely decorative architecture was rejected and the
| technology used to build industrial buildings was deployed for
| the construction of housing estates. The kitchen design of
| Schutte-Lihotzky was first installed in housing estates that were
| built in Frankfurt between 1926 and 1932. The Frankfurt kitchen
| was part of a new layout for apartments with gas stoves and
| central heating.[6]_
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_kitchen
| SamBam wrote:
| From the ergonomics of those shelf handles, I assume those are
| boxes that are designed to be pulled out entirely. Are they
| supposed to store pantry items -- bags of flour and such?
| Regardless, I feel like I need a wall like that in my little
| basement workshop.
| detourdog wrote:
| Yes, they were labled for period appropriate cooking supplies.
| eadmund wrote:
| > A "planned order" was to replace the "senseless chaos" of the
| world.
|
| The trouble with this is the implicit assumption that planned
| order is better. If there's a plan, then there must be a planner,
| who is after all only human. He'll have his own biases, his own
| emotions. And he won't have all the information he needs. He
| might plan a kitchen which works really, really well for a family
| of four, but will it work for a bachelor? Will it work for
| Orthodox Jews, who need separate dairy and meat ovens, sinks,
| countertops, dishes and utensils?
|
| Will it have room for innovations such as toaster ovens and smart
| pressure cookers (e.g. the famous Instant Pot)? What about when
| culture changes and show kitchens become a thing?
|
| On the other hand, the so-called 'senseless chaos' of the world
| means treating each particular installation as its own thing.
|
| > The notion of a regularly constructed reality corresponds to
| the principles of functionalism and rationality conditioned by
| industrial production processes. Both objects and people were to
| conform to these principles.
|
| There's another problem: demanding that people conform to the
| principles of industrial production processes. Every one is
| different in his own way -- there is no average man. And it's a
| short, terrible step from a system which demands that people
| conform to one which destroys those who don't.
| detourdog wrote:
| This is the exact line I'm trying to walk. My thinking is that
| small run manufacturing may actually be more efficient than
| centralized mass production.
|
| My focus is entirely based on my addressable market. That
| market is a small rural New England college town. It's may be
| hard to see but the cabinetry is designed to work in any of the
| 8 apartments and since they are manufactured on-sire I
| customize for each tenant as they come through. A few of my
| tenants have requested specialized features and I have
| accommodated those requests.
|
| I'm still in the start-up phase. I believe each individualized
| request my resonate with a future tenant and I will eventually
| have a catalog of cabinetry for the tenants to choose from.
| esafak wrote:
| It looks so familiar; like something from IKEA. Then I read that
| it is modeled after railway dining car kitchens and it made even
| more sense. Today we just call it a galley kitchen.
| arraypad wrote:
| For those in the UK, you can see a Frankfurt Kitchen on display
| at the new V&A East Storehouse in London:
|
| https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O121079/frankfurt-kitchen...
| jiehong wrote:
| A few years ago, the Arte tv channel created a French/German
| episode about it that was quite nice.
|
| I could only find the French version on YouTube:
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3z7UmTekGqM
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(page generated 2025-06-11 23:02 UTC)