Ricerc@Sapienza

The Weissenhof marks an important date as regards not only the new poetics in the architectural field, but also the furniture and design industry. Those years saw the appearance of the concept of ‘modern’ - in series, standardized, and functional - furniture, made with cutting-edge materials and open to experimenting with new uses and functions, especially in the kitchen. Here the furnishings, no longer handcrafted but industrially designed to be more functional and less cumbersome, were delivered directly to users along with the house, and also providing the earliest model of modular kitchen. This was fitted according to a coherent and logical mechanism affecting all parts, each subordinated to the other and positioned to achieve maximum performance. The archetype of today’s modular kitchens – in which every space and element was placed according to a functional logic – the kitchen developed at the Weissenhof was inspired by car design, with its shiny surfaces, doors in enamelled sheet, legs hidden by a base and, in its extreme functionality, soon turned into the modular kitchen that we all know today.