Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky's Frankfurt Kitchen: A Machine for Living

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky's Frankfurt Kitchen, designed between 1926 and 1930 for the New Frankfurt public housing project in Germany, is examined in a new feature by designboom. The kitchen, created with Bruno Taut and Ernst May, was a compact, efficient workspace intended to rationalize domestic labor. Sebastian Hackenschmidt, curator at the Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna (MAK), which houses a reproduction, explains that the kitchen was part of a broader movement towards Le Corbusier's 'machine for living.' The MAK reproduction, made in 1989-1990 with Schütte-Lihotzky's direct input, is described as 'her ideal reproduction.' The original kitchen at Museum Angewandte in Frankfurt, restored by conservator Christian Dressen, retains signs of wear. The kitchen's design included oak flour containers to repel mealworms and blue surfaces to deter flies. Schütte-Lihotzky aimed to free women from household drudgery, a goal often misunderstood by critics. The feature highlights the kitchen's enduring legacy as a design classic.