Japanese Kitchen - The Post-war Kitchen

The Post-war Kitchen

Many Japanese houses were destroyed in World War II. Rebuilding allowed architects to freely redesign houses as well as kitchens. The influence of Edo-period lifestyles was now nearly gone. Electricity and gas were built into kitchens, and designs reflected this change. An electric refrigerator, a luxury item before the war, became a standard item in the 1950s, along with an electric washing machine and a black-and-white television. However, early post-war housing projects were often poorly designed. Sometimes architects simply copied plans for American or European housing projects, with only minor modifications to better suit Japanese families. Kitchens were small and soon became cluttered with new electric appliances.

The "System Kitchen" approach to design was intended to make the kitchen easier for the average housewife to use. Since most families cook many types of cuisine in their kitchens, a streamlined cooking process was studied, focusing on how the kitchen was actually used. In a system kitchen, the refrigerator and other electrical appliances were placed in predesigned locations, and storage spaces were subdivided to house pots, pans and kitchen utensils.