ABSTRACT
In the interwar period the most basic and economical type of living space, the so-called Existenzminimum, was regarded as the most pressing topic to be addressed by modern domestic architecture. Each of the Werkbund model housing estates featured versions of the Existenzminimum units intended for sequential manufacturing in the future.
The Existenzminimum flat, which satisfies man’s basic social, biological, and
technological needs became the principal topic of the 2nd international CIAM
congress organized in Frankfurt am Main in 1929. The RFG (State Research Society for Cost Efficiency in Building and Housing) was a government agency established to stimulate and finance research on rational planning and support model housing developments.
Homes by avant-garde architects featured empty, uncluttered rooms, strictly functional objects, lightweight machine-made furniture which would not take up too much space: everything not serving a practical purpose was removed.
The area where the revolutionary changes affecting the average household were made most clearly visible was the rapid evolution of traditional kitchen. The so- called Frankfurt kitchen, designed by Margarete Schütte-Lichotzky in accordance with the science of ergonomics and presented in Frankfurt, was the first in the series of innovative solutions.
In the interwar period small laboratory kitchens were presented and popularized in houses of model experimental Werkbund estates in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
