Hofmobiliendepot, VIenna, 4 March 2015 – 26 July 2015

SW Kitchen, c. 1950 © BMobV, photo: Lois Lammerhuber

The modern fitted kitchen with standard cabinet units, a running water supply and built-in electrical appliances did not emerge until the twentieth century. However, the history of kitchen furniture and equipment goes back much further. For millennia people cooked on open fires, and a single kitchen supplied the whole household, whether this was a farmstead or the entire Vienna Hofburg.
The exhibition focuses on the evolution of the compact fitted kitchen designed for apartment living, of which the Frankfurt Kitchen developed in 1926 by the Viennese architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky is the most famous example. However, it was not until after the Second World War that fitted kitchens became a matter of course for broad sections of the population. Then from the 1970s onwards designers began to take new approaches to kitchen planning.
Curated by Dr Eva B. Ottillinger, The Kitchen and its Furniture – Design and history is part of the series of exhibitions on the cultural history of interior design at the Hofmobiliendepot/Imperial Furniture Collection. The exhibits will include objects from the museum’s holdings as well as numerous loans.