Gender and the Evolution of Kitchen Design
Kitchens and their ancillary spaces have transformed drastically throughout history. The focus of this research is not to examine the means of that evolution. But rather, drawing attention to the driving factors behind that evolution, beginning in the 18th century, and how gender comes into play in regards to kitchen design. Historically, the kitchen has often been viewed as a space for necessary labor. However, the residential kitchen has evolved to be understood as a space for the culinary arts, social gathering, and is much less bound to any particular gender. As new technologies in appliances and finishes emerged, kitchen layouts needed to transform to adapt to the needs of the user.
The design of spaces directly reflects the values, intersocial, and sociopolitical influences of the modern era. This phenomenon can be highlighted in how the design of the kitchen serves as a direct reflection of how gender roles have evolved throughout time due to the intersectional influences of industrialization, feminism, economic trends, and changing domestic ideologies. Not only do the changes in design represent shifts in labor, but also in power, autonomy, and identity. The theory in which spaces modulate culture and society can be seen in the various ideologies of Victor Papanek, who argues that design is deeply political, as it is shaped by and serves the interests of those in power. Additionally, this idea further solidifies the traditional gender role model, as described in Cifre and Cerrato’s article, which delineates instrumental roles for men and expressive roles for women—a model that has pervasively shaped domestic spatial design. By implementing an interdisciplinary approach involving historical research, feminist theory, architectural analysis, and cultural critique, this paper serves to investigate the question of the ways in which kitchen design has evolved alongside our understanding of gender, particularly within a post-industrial context.
While spatial planning is crucial in how we interact and perceive the social and physical world around us, social determinants such as gender play an interminable role in how spaces are designed to reflect the values of the people who inevitably will inhabit them. The kitchen is the most widely used space in a domestic home, and thus, is a clear reflection of the historical ideas that permeate and define our ideas around domesticity and gender. Historically, the kitchen has largely been considered a female-dominated space, and cooking has primarily been the responsibility of women. This is tied to traditional gender ideologies in which women are expected to manage the domestic sphere and men the public sphere, and thus, the design of the kitchen continuously reflects these ideals. To understand the complexity of this relationship, we must first comprehend the historical factors that shape our perspectives on work, labor, and spaces, which in turn influence our views on kitchen design.
In the late 18th century through the 19th century, kitchens were categorized as utilitarian and multipurpose spaces often separated from the rest of the house. These rigid, restrictive spatial arrangements lacked the ergonomic and task-specific layouts that categorize modern-day kitchens, oftentimes forgoing considerations regarding the comfort of workspaces. These spaces were often identifiable by the presence of large hearths and/or stoves, which required continuous labor to utilize and maintain. Furniture such as large wooden tables and detached storage cupboards can be used as an example of the multi-use functionality of these spaces. Often serving as places for preparing food, laundry, and storage, these spaces maintained a utilitarian identity. Similarly, this period in Western history was characterized by harsh conditions due to a lack of advanced or indoor plumbing, electricity, and standardized living conditions. Combined with the high degree of labor to maintain kitchen equipment, and the presence of open flames, soot, and rudimentary ventilation systems marked kitchens as harsh, hazardous environments. This can be reflected in the kitchen design of this time as it reflects these conditions by incorporating robust, heavy-duty materials and functional/expansive layouts. Kitchen designs of these centuries are limited by these conditions as flooring, finishes, and work surfaces must be able to withstand the environment. The layout of these kitchens must also be able to accommodate the massive amount of space that wood fired stoves and hearths require. The way in which these spaces were designed not only mirrored by, but served as a reinforcement of the strict division of labor enforced by gender roles in which women were expected to remain largely out of sight and within the home, all while managing a myriad of familial responsibilities. The absence of a standardized layout helps show not only the scale and rudimentary nature of household tasks, but also the invisibility of domestic labor in the architectural hierarchy of the home. By examining the conditions and requirements of kitchens of past eras, a line of evolution begins to make itself clear.
The physical division between gendered labor aligns with the public vs. private dichotomy as discussed in various feminist theories of this era, in which men dominated public and economic spaces in a contrasting nature to the feminine sphere as characterized by the private, emotional labor in the home. The kitchen as a feminized and secluded workspace, was central to this domestic arrangement. This idea of traditional gender role theory as shown by Parsons and Bales, provides a conceptual model that positions women of this time as expressive, nurturing, and home-bound, while men were deemed as practical, career-oriented members of society. This ideological structure deeply informed the spatial and social construction as kitchens could be equated to hidden workspaces, physically and symbolically marginalized, reflecting the broader social mobility and role of women as a facet of economic and political life.
In the years leading up to the start of World War I, architecture and design were significantly influenced by the second Industrial Revolution that took place between 1870 and 1914. The rise of industrialism marked a principle change in the architectural representation of kitchen spaces, which brought about a historical period categorized by rapid industrial growth and consumer-based production. This historical period brought electricity, indoor plumbing, and the invention and mass production of household appliances. Massive strides in manufacturing and social changes laid a foundation that we can use to conceptualize the changing normative values surrounding gender and labor. As the accessibility and usage of appliances rose to new highs, what were once seen as physically intensive tasks, such as dishwashing, cooking and food preservation, became standard household duties. This played a crucial part in the decline of the value of labor. In its place, a model of efficiency took precedence. This phenomena marks a key turning point of the stylistic influences of modern kitchen design. As 19th century kitchens generally relied upon wood fired stoves and hearths, they were the defining factors in regards to the spatial planning of kitchens in that era. These kitchen layouts could not be effectively adapted for the first models of enclosed gas and electric appliances without major renovations. The prior emphasis on bulky layouts as a means of safety due to open fires also diminished, allowing for the streamlining of kitchen layouts and an emphasis on functionality that matched the societal values of the time.
As industrialism continued to evolve, significant innovations in design began to shape a new era of both architectural design as well social ideals. By the early 20th century, 1901 to the mid-1930s, innovative areas such as architecture, art, education and science began to reflect the growing desire for efficiency and modernization. This shift can be seen in the evolution of the kitchen, particularly due to the ways in which areas of design were drastically influenced by principles of scientific management such as Taylorism and time motion studies. These principles later became the basis of some of the most influential design theorists as seen by Frederick Winslow Taylor and later adopted by domestic advocates such as Christine Frederick. These theories emphasized the deconstruction of tasks into subject optimized motions. Frederick is a prime example of these concepts, as she applied them particularly to the kitchen sphere, identifying ideal sink heights, optimal triangular arrangements between the stove, sink and refrigerator as well as advocating for the efficiency of built in storage to reduce movement and the time spent on labor. However, it would not be until the Frankfurt Kitchen’s unveiling that the kitchen layout as we know it would come to be commonplace. When examining this floor plan from House Beautiful, February 1920, we can see a clear distinction between pre-Frankfurt kitchen and post-Frankfurt kitchen designs.
Additionally, one of the most significant turning points in kitchen design can be identified with the birth of the Frankfurt Kitchen. The Frankfurt kitchen was designed in 1926 by Austrian architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky. Lihotzky’s design took significant influences from the design of railway cars and the logic of Taylorism with an emphasis on efficiency and ergonomics. These influences contributed to the now famous design of the Frankfurt kitchens compact and scientifically inspired layout with a goal of optimization. The goal of the design was heavily inspired by the popularized time motion studies developed by christine Frederick, in which the kitchen was designed to streamline labor and reduce the distance in which one had to travel by enforcing that all essential tools and ingredients were within arm’s reach of a single person. The design also introduced modular cabinetry and specialized storage systems for household items such as flour and sugar, all of which remains a defining characteristic of modern day kitchens.
While the Frankfurt Kitchen was initially designed as a means of advocacy for the working class woman by streamlining the efficiency of kitchen work, and thus alleviating the domestic load expected of women at the time, some would argue that the effect of it’s design resulted in a somewhat antithetical effect in that it also enforced isolated domesticity. The Frankfurt kitchen allowed room for only one person, and thus reinforced the expectation that women were the sole proprietors of kitchen work. Critics of the Frankfurt Kitchen often claim that its design limited the autonomy of these women by creating a secularized space centered entirely for domestic labor. While this view is cited frequently among studies of organizational gender sociology, this critique often overlooks the intentions and feminist influences that impacted the development of Schütte-Lihotzky’s designs in which Lihotzky aimed to create a space that alleviated the challenging daily realities faced by working women that were shaped by an economic and political context that remained largely beyond their control. The Frankfurt kitchen was meant to serve as a rejection of the previous six decades of gendered domestic norms by introducing a means of escapism in the form of a sequestered space in which women could feel that they were actively reclaiming practical and conscious autonomy over the self all within the the eras overt constraints surrounding social policies and entrenched gender politics. These influences encapsulates the logic and importance of the Frankfurt kitchen and its design, and is crucial in understanding the ways in which gender intersects with the evolution and design of the kitchen. Lihotzky understood space to be a luxury, and thus made the decision to prioritize efficiency in the face of limited available area, a decision based out of consideration of the working class rather than a means of female isolation. The placement of a chair by the window as well as the use of opaque doors serves a subtle means of disrupting the inhabitant of any external viewership, and thus reducing the potential from possible scrutiny. Similarly, the act of sitting by the window and having the autonomy to observe the outside world became a subtle act of agency; an assertion of visual power and consumption of leisure in the face of gendered expectations of labor. Contemporary commentators often devalue the significance of this autonomous defiance, the ability to shut the door enabled a reclamation of authority over the space, free from constant observation, but while the kitchen remained functionally isolating, it provided an early attempt at recognizing the emotional and psychological labor of women, highlighting a critical intersection of design and feminist politics.
While the shifts in kitchen design during the second industrial revolution were undeniably crucial contributors to the ways in which we understand modern kitchens, there was a distinct phase of stagnation of innovative design between WWI and WWII. Yet, following the mid-century in America, the kitchen’s evolution in regards to the intersection of design and gender roles continued to evolve in critical ways. The users themselves also evolved with changing times, experiencing a resurgence influenced by the post WWII housing boom, mass consumerism, suburban expansion, and the societal emphasis of cold war domestic value systems. Marketing at this time played a crucial role in the ways in which the kitchen was reinforced as a feminine space, framing it as a symbolic representation of the ideal life in compliance with gendered value systems; the kitchen as a woman’s domain, a site of creativity and consumption as seen by the emphasis on newly purchased and updated appliances. Similarly, this idea was extrapolated by rising societal pressures on motherhood, in which home economics textbooks, advertising campaigns, and even federal policies such as the G.I. Bill encouraged the ideal of the nuclear family with a homemaker mother at its center. The ideological messages established domesticity as a patriotic duty and gendered labor as central to the American way of life. This shift in national values was directly reflected in the way in which the kitchen became a symbol of American modernity and stability in a post-war era, reinforcing the domestic role of women as essential to national identity. Advertisements, cooking shows, magazines, and homemaking manuals continually enforced the narrative of the modern housewife – characterized by domestic contentment in familial care made possible by the latest technology.
Simultaneously, the idea of participatory design began to gain traction as the idealization of suburban living and increased consumption increasingly took hold across the United States. This trend was successful in perpetuating the idea that female consumers had a degree of control over their domestic environment. Yet, despite the use of design as a mode of empowerment for housewives, there was a clear undermining of female accreditation through infantilizing language. Design catalogs and instructional guides popular with women at the time often portrayed women as whimsical decorators rather than informed agents of spatial planning. Feminine Touches such as scalloped trim, ornamental cabinetry, and coordinated color schemes were socially framed as an enjoyable domestic hobby and pastime, effectively invalidating the emotional and physical labor embedded in the design of the space.
During this era, kitchen aesthetics also shifted significantly, specifically in the areas of color. Colors like pastels, pinks, aquas and yellows were presented as not only a means to feminize the space, but a representation of having achieved the ideal American life – i.e. the nuclear family. This use of color and stylization was not neutral, but rather it was a tool used to reiterate the role of gendered labor by subtly enforcing expectations that domestic work could be beautified and emotionally fulfilling for women. Media and advertisements honed in on this idea of the kitchen as a symbol of status, fulfillment and success. It was this social push that gave birth to the idea of the “dream kitchen” concept, a phenomena that has continued to evolve in predominantly female domains and still maintains a strong presence in modern media today. Design elements such as rounded corners, display shelves and soft textures were suggested as a way to make the kitchen more inviting, or cozy, but they also served as representations of the subliminal message that domestic labor such as cooking and cleaning could be pleasurable when designed pleasurably. These idealized versions of domestic bliss stood as the pinnacle representations of what the reward was when one successfully fulfilled the role of femininity and complacency with gender norms. Women who deviated from these norms were often framed as failures in homemaking and, by extension failures in their womanhood and their civic duty. Despite technical advancements and increased consumer choice, the ideological function of the kitchen remained largely the same: to tether women to the home through a new, glossy narrative of domestic fulfillment.
The ideas of this era and the apparent theme of feminine containment into the domestic sphere is also made apparent in the structural design of the mid-century kitchen, in which they also served as what can only be described as stages for observation and surveillance, both internal and external. Open serving hatches, bay windows, and glass cabinetry put women on display, subtly reinforcing the idea that their domestic competence and physical presentation were subject to observation and judgment. The idea of the “open house” or the perfect hostess further embedded gender expectations into spatial arrangements, emphasizing visibility, hospitality, and decorum as hallmarks of female success.
It was during this time that one of the most influential, if not somewhat surprising hallmarks of the modern day kitchen was popularized – the kitchen island. The kitchen island emerged as a design feature in the 1940s and steadily rose in popularity over the following years. The introduction of the kitchen island into a space effectively reformed kitchens from their historical role of isolated back room spaces into a premature social space. The island reconfigures the kitchen drastically from a labor-oriented, efficiency-driven space, to an interstitial space of sociability. Similarly, the introduction of islands influenced a movement towards more open floor plans in which the barriers between the dining, entertainment and kitchen spaces were mitigated, effectively establishing the kitchen as a multipurpose space and embedding it deeper into the rhythms of daily life. While this integration increased the potential for a greater distribution of domestic labor, it also subtly shifted the frame in which historically people had viewed the kitchen space. The introduction of the kitchen island and the open floor plan rebranded cooking as a lifestyle activity in which men’s presence then could comparably be framed as voluntary and hobbyist in nature rather than obligatory. The celebrity chef allowed for cooking in general to be reframed as a hobby rather than a task. However, cookbooks, magazines, and television shows began depicting male chefs as authoritative experts and passionate creators, while women remained associated with routine and invisible domestic maintenance (Hollows). We can look at the drastic difference between celebrity chefs such as Martha Stewart compared to Gordon Ramsay. Stewart is often portrayed as the calm chef with a love for the art of cooking. Ramsay is often portrayed as angry, yet with incredible skill in the kitchen. While the influence of the island is one of the first indicators of the shifting societal norms following the gradual increase of women in the workforce in combination with the rise of a more egalitarian view of domestic responsibilities, it continued to reinforce a bifurcated model of gendered labor. Where men maintained the autonomy and right of visible and creative participation, women remained responsible for the management of domestic responsibility.
The 1960s and 1970s were categorized by major social, political, and ideological shifts in a variety of different contexts that indisputably altered the course of interior design and architecture. One movement that significantly influenced the role of gender and kitchen design was the Women’s Liberation Movement, which was characterized by overt questioning of the unequal domestic burden placed on women. The influence of feminist theorists and activists contributed to a new emphasis on dismantling structural systems of unpaid labor, specifically domestic labor. These ideological shifts began to be reflected in kitchen designs in subtle but influential ways which can be seen in the continued move towards open floor plans, the centering of kitchens in the homespace, and the modernization of appliances as a reflection of the expectation of shared use not dictated by gender. Importantly, it was during this time that critical proprietors of feminist theory began to explore the idea of the kitchen as a tool of women’s subjugation. One of the most influential contributors of this idea can be found in Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” (1963), in which she argued that domestic technology had failed to liberate women, and had instead enforced their isolation in highly surveilled, yet highly polished prisons of domesticity. Friedan’s critique called attention to the paradox of modern kitchens and their role in devaluing gendered labor, exemplifying the idea that while they prioritize efficacy, they had also become symbols of gendered entrapment and reframing technology as a tool of containment rather than liberation.
These shifts were similarly reflected in the ways in which masculinity was expressed in the context of domestic participation and involvement. Studies show a rise in “progressive” male domesticity in bachelor households, where cooking and design became forms of self-expression rather than obligation (Neuman et al., 2017). Male celebrity chefs further rebranded kitchen work as performative and prestigious, rather than mundane and gendered. Cultural analysis of figures such as Anthony Bourdain and Gordon Ramsay illustrates how media representations of cooking as an art form have helped redefine kitchen labor in masculine terms, offering men a different mode of domestic authority. Yet, these representations often masked the persistent inequalities in everyday household labor: women still overwhelmingly shouldered routine chores, while men’s participation remained discretionary and often symbolic (Martínez and Paterna).
In the 21st century, the kitchen has continued its evolution as a multifunctional, technologically integrated space. However, these advancements are not inherently egalitarian, access to technology and space remain stratified by income, and gendered expectations persist in design and marketing. Media representations continue to reflect these trends, showcasing kitchens as spaces of creativity and togetherness while eliding the ongoing domestic labor divide. Contemporary architectural research also shows an increased focus on emotional geographies, such as how memory, mood, and agency shape experiences in the kitchen (Meah, 2016). Kitchens are now designed to accommodate a broader range of users, including multigenerational families, non-normative households, ranges of ability, and nonbinary individuals. Despite this, current research has continued to detect gendered patterns of spatial preferences in which women tend to prefer multipurpose kitchen spaces while men lean toward segmented zones of function.
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