The Modern Interior

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Erna Meyer’s kitchen in the house designed by J.J.P. Oud for the Weissenhof Siedlung
Exhibition, Stuttgart, 1927.
places’, one writer has explained. 17 It was beginning to become clear how
a rational approach to home design could take on visual and material
forms to represent it. One of May’s most important decisions was to
bring the architect, Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, from Vienna to work
with him on his project. Her lasting contribution to the development of
the rational face of the modern domestic interior was the work she
undertook on what came to be known as the ‘Frankfurt Kitchen’. The
design of the small laboratory kitchen that Schütte-Lihotzky developed,
along lines already set out by Frederick, was inspired by equivalents in the
public sphere – the ship’s galley, the kitchen in the railroad dining car and
the lunch wagon in particular – which had been designed to facilitate
serving food to large numbers of people in as efficient a way as possible. 18
The architect emphasized the importance of step-saving and of efficient,
well organized, storage. She also included Frederick’s workbench and
stool in what has been described as ‘a work station where all implements
were a simple extension of the operator’s hand’. 19 Other notable features
included a continuous counter surface attached to the walls of the tiny
room, a cutting board fitted into the workbench with a waste bin positioned
immediately below it (following Frederick’s example), and a