Failings Of Kitchens Designed By Men

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31094, 24 June 1966, Page 2

Failings Of Kitchens Designed By Men

(By

SULLA BRUCE)

There are no prizes for guessing which marriage partner spends the most time in the kitchen. But I might consider giving a small prize for anyone who can tell me why, in that case, kitchen-designing is almost exclusively a male province.

I have a man-designed kitchen, complete with handleless drawers that need a master cracksman to open them and cupboards so deep that no-one in their right mind would put anything in them—and expect to ever see it again. It is time, too, that someone pointed out that housewives are not a race of dwarfs, and that cupboards and shelves fixed four or five feet high are well within the reach of most of us.

Deep shelves are also usually a waste of time—-eight-inch shelves are normally quite wide enough for most household tins, pots and packets. The unit in my sketch illustrates what I mean.

The rows of four-inch-wide shelves just above the work surface are ideal for most of

the odds and ends which need to be within ready reach.

Housing the cooker is another issue over which men and women tend to disagree. Men think tht thing should stand aloofly on its own, apparently as far away from sink and work surface as possible. Women who, after all, have to use the thing, prefer it Incorporated in the actual work top, as in my sketch, with the rings and hot-plates protruding through a stainless steel plate. When will male designers realise that stainless steel is the only really practicable working surface in a kitchen? Accidentally put a hot pan on the most sophisticatedlooking laminated surfacing and it probably will protest vigorously and expensively. Steel is a bit more expensive, but it is worth it.