Join the Goethe Institute, Docomomo US/Chicago, and Chicago Women in Architecture at the Eggersmann Chicago showroom for a film screening on the Frankfurt Kitchen and its designer, Austrian architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky. The film will be followed by a panel discussion on the influence of the Frankfurt Kitchen on modern kitchen design.

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In 1926 Austrian architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (1897-2000) designed the Frankfurt Kitchen for Ernst May's New Frankfurt housing project. Based on her own research and that of American industrial engineer, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Lihotzky used a railroad dining car kitchen as her model to design a "housewife's laboratory", one that used minimum space but offered maximum efficiency and a range of equipment to aid the working mother. The Frankfurt City Council eventually installed 10,000 of her mass-produced, prefabricated kitchens in newly built working-class apartments throughout the city. The Frankfurt kitchen was the first “standardized” kitchen, using fitted modular cabinets and was the forerunner of the modern kitchens that were introduced to the American public in the mid-1930s. The Chicago region was home to many cabinet and fixture manufacturers producing modular kitchen units in both steel and wood that were directly influenced by the design of the Frankfurt kitchen.

Light refreshments will be provided by Eggersmann Chicago.

5:30pm Pre-event reception
6:00pm Introduction 
6:05pm Film
6:45pm Panel Session
7:15pm Audience Question and Answer 
7:30pm Post-event reception