Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen

Over the course of the past century, the kitchen, more than any other room in the modern dwelling, has been the focus of intensive aesthetic and technological innovation. Historically, European and American kitchens were often drab, poorly ventilated, and hidden from view in a basement or annex. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, however, the kitchen became a central concern of modernism and a testing ground for new materials and technologies. Since then, the room has come to articul...