Surry Hills House 2 by Anthony Gill Architects.

Image: Peter Bennetts

Sydney Living Museums is holding a series of fascinating talks over eight Thursday nights from 12 September to 31 October 2013 at the Mint. The series is entitled Open Talks: Rooms in the House and brings together architects, historians and social commentators to explore and discuss how the design, use and relationship of different rooms in the home have changed over time – from the demise of formal living rooms to the changing nature of kitchens and bathrooms – and what these changes say about us as people and societies.

Michael Bogle, design historian.

Michael Bogle explores how domestic kitchen design developed in the twentieth century shows and how this reflects the evolution and/or devolution of family life. This room’s elastic boundaries expand and contract to absorb design innovations, technological wizardry and seamlessly morphing contemporary social patterns. Michael’s illustrated talk begins by investigating the role of time and motion engineering studies in the 1910s in shaping the interior architecture of the kitchen. A number of female architects and designers contributed to the creation of a new ‘domestic science’, developing innovations that continue to guide contemporary design. The modernist kitchen arrived in Australia circa 1926 when Sydney Ure Smith’s famed colour magazine The Home wrote about ‘model kitchens’ with their plentiful power points and Vitrolite glass splashbacks. Cooking, however, remained a solitary task until designers dissolved the ‘fourth wall’ to establish cooking as theatre. Today the kitchen space has begun to shape itself around new devices. To ruthlessly paraphrase a famous French gourmand, it is said that the discovery of a new appliance does more for the happiness of humankind than the discovery of a star. Michael concludes the talk with some thoughts and illustrations on the evolution of the domestic kitchen.

Hannah Tribe, architect.

Hannah Tribe (Tribe Studio Architects) will look at the evolution of the contemporary kitchen, from a modern machine for cooking to today’s kitchen where technology is seamlessly integrated, cooking is a creative expression, dad is as likely as mum to be making dinner and the kitchen is central to the living space of the house. The kitchen is the room in the house that has been most transformed by technology, increased gender equity and changing demographics.

24 October 2013
6.30–8.00 pm
The Mint
Bookings essential.
$30 general, $25 concession/members
Information & bookings