Almost 100 years have passed between the first fitted kitchen and today’s individually designed kitchens. In this time, with many changes in living space and kitchen technology, designers have continually developed new solutions in response to changes in society and our daily lives. Whether it’s a simply equipped cooking area or the kitchen as an open, communicative centre of the living space, different approaches and variations have been developed, designed and tested in the market.  

From 21 November, the Neue Sammlung at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich will be presenting milestones in the history of kitchen design from its extensive collection in an exhibition entitled ‘Kitchen Culture’. The exhibition begins with the so-called Frankfurt Kitchen by Grete Schütte-Lihotzky, followed by developments from the Bauhaus and the post-war period, including Le Corbusier’s kitchen for the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille and Arne Jacobsen’s Interbau kitchen in Berlin. New approaches to kitchen design are represented by Stefan Wewerka’s Kitchen Tree and Herbert H. Schultes’ Workbench. Other approaches, such as J-Gast’s kitchen, extend to the present day, offering, as the museum puts it, ‘a picture of the diversity of today’s needs, new ideas and design concepts’. The exhibition was designed by OHA (Sami Ayadi, Jan Heinzelmann).