Hoping for radical social change through objects often disappoints, as it always turns out to matter more who uses them. Nevertheless, some designs become strongly associated with desires for more freedom, flexibility, or fun, and while it would be naive to imagine that they change social relations all by themselves—just by being there—they can help.
Architect Sam Chermayeff’s “free kitchens” reflect this optimism well. His designs are free in that everything from sinks to ranges is liberated from walls. Many elements have castor feet and can be moved, though practicality dictates they stay close to one another like a huddle of penguins. “I mean, l didn’t invent the kitchen island,” Chermayeff joked, though even his most fixed designs, which are islands, take unusual forms. They juxtapose kitchen components in ways that suggest we have been neglecting even this familiar typology, whose original shock in bringing food preparation out of the closed kitchen and onto a kind of domestic stage has been so normalized that it’s largely forgotten (though whose labor is displayed and whose remains hidden has not changed as much).
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