The Cornell Kitchen: Housing and Design Research in Postwar America

Barbara Penner
2018 Technology and Culture  
The Cornell Kitchen (1950-55) was produced at Cornell University by a multidisciplinary team with expertise in home economics, engineering, architecture, and psychology. It promised to deliver rational design, functional principles, aesthetic appeal, and emotional satisfaction in one prefabricated, easy-to-install package. This article sets out the kitchen's history from its design to its field-testing phase to its impact on postwar kitchens. It argues that the kitchen represents an important
more » ... fort to approach housing in a more scientific way; scientific methods were deployed to understand both the physical and socio-psychological problems of dwelling. The project also sought to introduce a specific model for leveraging housing research into the real world, partnering with industry to mass produce scientific designs. Social scientific methods were hence used to create not only more livable but also more saleable products in an effort to appeal to manufacturers and consumers alike. Correction: There was an error in the spelling of Don Toromanoff's name in the print issue. The online version has been corrected. PENNERK | KThe Cornell Kitchen 49 architecture, and social psychology, the kitchen aimed to deliver rational design, functional principles, aesthetic appeal, and emotional satisfaction in one prefabricated, easy-to-install package. Even if it did not achieve all it promised, its synthetic vision tantalized audiences enough to garner tremendous interest and publicity in its day, both in America and abroad. The Cornell Kitchen continues to be cited prominently in contemporary studies of twentieth-century kitchen design produced by historians of architecture, design, home economics, and technology. 2 Surprisingly, however, the kitchen has never been the subject of its own academic study and remains poorly understood. Drawing on the substantial archival records at Cornell University, this article explores the full story of the kitchen's fiveyear development from its design to its manufacture to its field-testing phase, when it was installed in the homes of local families and observed in use for nine months. It also tracks the kitchen's reception and impact on postwar kitchen design. Its larger aim, however, is to examine the changing historical context from which the kitchen emerged, specifically treating it as an index to shifts in housing and design research in postwar America. As a university-based, government-funded project devoted to the most culturally significant space in the home, the Cornell Kitchen was an important early response to the call for a "more exact and more scientific" approach to housing design. 3
doi:10.1353/tech.2018.0006 pmid:29731467 fatcat:dc3e373w3bgi5odpi3aqx4fo4m