Scanning Around With Gene: How Dated is Your Kitchen?

I can be rightfully accused of having a particular fondness for vintage illustrations and photographs of kitchens, which are not only the heart of the home, but are easily dated by design. I sometimes wonder what the kitchens of today will look like in another 30 or 40 years — probably just as out-of-date as those from yesteryear appear now. It strikes me as funny to think that the granite-counter, Wolf-stove look will someday feel as dated as harvest gold appliances and no-wax linoleum. Contemporary design always feels so fresh and era-less when you’re living in it. But eventually some new aesthetic comes along and turns the contemporary into the nostalgic.
Today’s images are all from a terrific 1944 brochure featuring Hotpoint modular kitchens for “easy installation in the modern home”. These pre-fab arrangements included cabinets, tables, and appliances and have names like the Eagle Kitchen, the BlueBird Kitchen, the Meadowlark Kitchen, and the Dandelion Kitchen. They were available in a variety of layouts for any room shape. The brochure shows models for laundry rooms, pantries, and utility areas as well. Click on any image for a larger version.


I don’t spend that much time in the kitchen these days — I’m more of a garage person lately. But the kitchen is typically one of the most used rooms in the home and one of the first to need a good remodel now and then.


Appliance manufacturers, like automobile makers, come out with new models all the time, and one of the things they continuously “improve” is design. I grew up in the era of avocado and harvest gold appliances, though at my house the fixtures were strictly white.



I like the designs in this brochure and would gladly go for a modern equivalent. But today everyone seems to want elaborate kitchens with industrial-strength appliances, counters, and sinks and elaborate food-prep areas. Cooking has turned into an art, not a chore.



I also like that Hotpoint chose to use illustrations rather than photographs for this brochure. It gives all the layouts a sparkling, shiny and clean look that wouldn’t come through in photos.


There probably weren’t all that many homes being built in 1944 due to the continuing war effort, but there was an unprecedented building boom right after the war as returning soldiers came home. I imagine Hotpoint and others sold lots of kitchens in the following decade.


The average cost of a home in 1945 was $4,600 and, according to this brochure, the kitchen should represent about 10% of that cost. So these kitchens ran about $400 to $500, including the appliances. Not bad! But then, in 1945 the average yearly salary was $2,400 and a gallon of gas cost 15 cents.


I have a tendency to romanticize the past, and I picture this as an idyllic era full of hope and promise, as so many young couples started a new life free of war and economic hard times. But like any era, people surely had their problems, and a shiny new electric kitchen only went so far in alleviating them.

Kitchens are still available in pre-fab configurations. You only have to look at an Ikea catalog to see the modern equivalent of this brochure. And we still lust after things shiny and new. The era may change and the colors may shift, but the desire for a “modern” kitchen seems timeless.
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Gene Gable has spent a lifetime in publishing, editing and the graphic arts and is currently a technology consultant and writer. He has spoken at events around the world and has written extensively on graphic design, intellectual-property rights, and publishing production in books and for magazines such as Print, U&lc, ID, Macworld, Graphic Exchange, AGI, and The Seybold Report. Gene's interest in graphic design history and letterpress printing resulted in his popular columns "Heavy Metal Madness" and "Scanning Around with Gene" here on CreativePro.com.
  • Anonymous says:

    Wow! They had dishwashers like that in 1944? – Not in the UK they didn’t!!! The kitchens Look pretty good, I wouldn’t mind one now.

  • campeau says:

    What is it about humans and how we all bring our brightest moment forward till the end. That’s how I would feel when I visited my grandmothers or aunts in the 60s and 70s who still had a kitchen from the 30s or 40s. That was there peak and the ‘new’ had no effect on them. I remember the white steel door cabinets, scratched and slightly dented, and often starting to corrode. The wringer-style wash machine sat on a back porch and never a dryer, although they could have afforded it. Our house had ‘coppertone’ appliances, but when the late 60s brought a new color palette, my mom experimented with a new avocado washer that was placed in the basement far away from any color clash. I’m sure she must have felt some level of designer excitement to be owning this slice of the hip. Still no dryer, just laundry hanging from a cord. Eventually she bought a stand-alone dishwasher in the 80s, but ‘white’, since ‘coppertone’ was phased out.
    Thanks for this posting, a pleasure to view and ponder.

  • Anonymous says:

    Anybody notice that “housewives” are perfectly groomed and dressed, and complete their duties in high heels??

    Trouper44 aka Sheila J

  • Anonymous says:

    FYC

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