In 1926, Frankfurt installed 10,000 modern fitted kitchens; today, volunteers are rescuing them

(Photograph by Carl Mydans/Library of Congress) In 1926, Frankfurt began installing a new kind of kitchen in its homes. Designed by Austrian architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, the compact, fitted kitchen used built-in cupboards, worktops and carefully arranged storage to make cooking more efficient. About 10,000 were installed across the German city. A century later, most have disappeared, but volunteers are salvaging surviving fittings and restoring some kitchens in their original homes. As reported by Architectural Digest, parts from around 50 Frankfurt Kitchens have been rescued and stored in a warehouse, as conservation specialists work to preserve the design that helped shape the modern fitted kitchen.How the Frankfurt Kitchen changed home designThe Frankfurt Kitchen was designed as part of ‘Neues Frankfurt,’ a municipal housing programme launched to address the housing shortage after World War I. Architect and urban planner Ernst May led the programme, and Schütte-Lihotzky joined his team in 1925. She was tasked with designing a compact kitchen that could be produced at scale and reduce the time spent on household work. Inspired by railway dining-car kitchens and Taylorism...