Aluminium
Germany, around 1930
Attributed to Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (1897-2000) – Austrian architect and designer
Manufactured by the Gebrüder Haarer in Frankfurt, Hanau
Designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky for the Frankfurt Kitchen in 1926
12 labelled ingredient drawers from the Frankfurt Kitchen
Each with manufacturer’s mark ‘Original Haarer Hanau A. M.’
Measurements: each 14.2 x 11 x 30 cm
Good condition
Provenance: Private collection, Great Britain
Remnants from what is often considered the first modern ‘fitted’ kitchen, created for Ernst May's New Frankfurt social housing project of the mid- to late 1920s

The ‘Frankfurt Kitchen’ was a milestone in domestic architecture, considered the forerunner of modern fitted kitchens, for it realised a kitchen built after a unified concept, designed to enable efficient work and to be built at low cost. It was designed in 1926 by Austrian architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky for architect Ernst May's social housing project New Frankfurt in Frankfurt, Germany. The twelve drawers were probably manufactured around 1930 as a feature of this new kitchen concept. According to their labels they should store flower, sugar, oat flakes, rice, semolina, vanilla pudding powder, icing sugar, raisins, salt, pasta, sago and baking ingredients.



The drawers are in good condition with traces of use. Each drawer is marked with the manufacturer ‘Original Haarer Hanau A. M.’ and bares a label to identify its content. The measurements are 14.2 x 11 x 30 cm each.



Margarete "Grete" Schütte-Lihotzky (1897-2000)

Margarete "Grete" Schütte-Lihotzky (1897-2000) was the first female graduate in architecture in Austria. Her design for the so-called „Frankfurter Küche“ (Frankfurter kitchen), which is deemed to be the prototype of today's fitted kitchen, gained her worldwide recognition. She studied at the college for arts and crafts under influential artists like Oskar Kokoschka and Anton Hanak and later under Oskar Strnad, the pioneer of social housing architecture. She had received several awards even before graduation. Her designs regarding settlement building were implemented in the 1930s. She became one of the central figures of the German Resistance against the Nazis.



Housing project 'Neues Frankfurt' (1925-1930)

The housing project 'Neues Frankfurt' was initiated in order to tackle the severe housing shortage in Frankfurt am Main. It unified the merits of classical modernism and functionalism and aimed towards an aesthetic standardisation for an inexpensive living comfort. Mainly municipal workshops as well as the Deutscher Werkbund (German Work Federation) and the Bauhaus were involved in the execution of the project.

Bauhaus

The 'Staatliches Bauhaus', generally known as Bauhaus, was an influential avant-garde art school of the decorative arts and design as well as fine arts, architecture and theater that existed in Germany between 1919 and 1933. The founder Walter Gropius believed that the foundation for any form of art was to be found in handcraft, ultimately aiming to remove any distinction between fine arts and applied arts. However new demands arose that could not be satisfied solely with handcraft. Walter Gropius recognized the need to divert the attention towards mass production and thus the Bauhaus changed its program in 1923 to art and technology, which later became the school’s image.

The school was situated in three different cities: Weimar from 1919 to 1925, Dessau from 1925 to 1932 and Berlin 1932 to 1933 under the leadership of three different directors: Walter Gropius the founder, in Weimar and partly in Dessau 1919 to 1928, Hannes Meyer from 1928 to 1930 in Dessau and Mies van der Rohe 1930 to 1933 partly in Dessau and later in Berlin. The three different locations also represent three different stages in the development of the Bauhaus.

Founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar in 1919 the foundation of the school was very much based on arts and crafts and applied arts mixed with fine arts and theater. Important artists from this period were Josef Itten, Lyonel Feininger, Gerhard Marcks, Oskar Schlemmer, Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. In 1922 the de Stijl movement entered into the life of the Bauhaus with influential leaders of the movement such as the Dutch painter Theo van Doesburg and the Russian constructivist El Lissitzky. From 1919 to 1922 Josef Itten taught the “Vorkurs” (Germany for ‘preliminary course’) introducing the new students to the concept of the Bauhaus. Itten was strongly influenced by the Blaue Reiter group in Munich. After his resignation the Hungarian designer Laszlo Moholy-Nagy continued teaching the Vorkurs, as well as operating as leader of the metal workshop. Later in 1928 Moholy-Nagy’s most talented student Marianne Brandt took over the metal workshop.

In the tradition of the school’s variety there were many different workshops which were run by former students who became junior masters. Herbert Bayer was in charge of the typography workshop, Marcel Breuer of the joinery workshop, Hinnerk Scheper was head of the mural painting workshop, Joost Schmidt taught the sculpture workshop and Gunta Stoelzl ran the weaving workshop. Another important and one of the Bauhaus’s first workshops was the ceramic workshop which started out in Dornburg at the workshop of the master potter Max Krehan. Theodor Bogler was instrumental when the pottery workshop made a technological leap in 1923 by moving from the potters wheel to ceramic casting, prototypes for serial production were being made here. Bogler’s famous “Kombinations Teekanne” (German for ‘combination teapot’), which was based on the modular design principle, represents the ultimate example of the industrial approach to pottery at the Bauhaus. Other workshops at the Bauhaus were the theater workshop; stone and wood sculpture workshop and the carpentry workshop.

In 1925 the Bauhaus moved to Dessau. This signified a radical change in style moving towards a futuristic international style. New workshops were formed here such as the photographic workshop taught by Walter Peterhans, which formed part of the advertising workshop. The Bauhaus wallpapers were designed in the mural paintings workshop and were an important commercial success for the Bauhaus. After Gropius’ resignation in 1928 Hannes Meyer, a radical functionalist, became the new Bauhaus director. The school was forced to close and moved to Berlin in 1932. After a short existence in Berlin from 1932 to 1933 the artistic output of Bauhaus was declared as ‘degenerate art’ by the Nazis and forced to close. The director Mies van der Rohe as well as many other Bauhaus students and teachers immigrated to America where the philosophy of the Bauhaus continued to spread and the influence of the short-lived establishment is still strong today.

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