06/04/2026
Fun fact: Did you know the concept of the modern fitted kitchen was actually inspired by a train car?
Before the 1920s, home kitchens were filled with mismatched, freestanding furniture, a random table, a standalone cupboard, and a sink. It was inefficient and required a lot of walking back and forth.
In 1926, an Austrian architect named Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky changed everything. She was tasked with designing kitchens for a new public housing project in Frankfurt, Germany, where space was tight. To figure out the most efficient layout, she took a stopwatch and timed how long it took to do various tasks.
Taking inspiration from the ultra-cramped, highly efficient railway dining car kitchens of the time, she invented the "Frankfurt Kitchen." It was the very first built-in, modular kitchen, featuring continuous countertops so you didn't drop things between gaps, a narrow walkway designed to minimize the number of steps required to cook a meal, and dedicated, labeled storage bins for ingredients.
Almost every modern kitchen layout we use today, including the standard height of your countertops and the placement of your cabinets, evolved from that single, train-inspired design.
