The Leader

Issue date: 10/8/09 Section: A&E

Media Credit: Sean Nemetz

Media Credit: Sean Nemetz

Sleek, colorful and engineered to preserve and design the best apple pies mother could make. Consumers may not realize the art in the creation of the kitchen and how it has contributed to world culture. Thanks to the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, the general public can view how cultural values and consumerism have created a recipe for the "Great American Kitchen 1900-2010" exhibit.

Opened in July, the exhibit examines at how history and innovation has reproduced the modern kitchen over the past one hundred years. Most of the models in the kitchen are from MIAD's collection of industrial design products, with a plethora of donations and a few appliances from American and Electrolux. Included within the exhibit is a look at how American values in the family and food have changed, with a look at how every day appliances and cookbooks have evolved.

"The kitchen's rise in importance over a century has paralleled the emancipation of women in our culture as well as the development of the consumer product industry," says Mark Lawson, the director of Galleries. "Over the past 120 years, the kitchen has evolved from a room of toil to its current position as a place at the center of American family life."

Broken down into five separate periods, each sequence demonstrating a perception of what American values and history of the time. For instance, from 1900-1920, the kitchen was concerned with the pre-electric gas era and had stoves that used either gas or wood. From 1920 up until the 40's, product development boomed when electricity and gas were applied to the kitchen, as well as a promotion of safety standards and sanitation. In 1950 and through the 1960s, the post-World War II heightened creative marketing within the kitchen, crafting the look of kitchen cookware and appliances.

The kitchen began to become a central part of the home in the 1970s-1980s, as products were improved and designed to reflect the new technologies of the era, as well as a focus on color coordination within the kitchen as a whole. With the help of the digital age, the aesthetics of the kitchen in the 1990s explore a contemporary approach that reflects a modernist style by applying smaller appliances and the kitchen more compact, less is best.

"The Great American Kitchen" exhibit will be active through February 20, 2010 in MIAD's Brooks Stevens Gallery of Industrial Design. The exhibit is free and open to the public. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10am to 5pm. Brooks Stevens Gallery is at 273 E. Erie Street. For more information, contact Mark Lawson at 414-847-3350 or at mlawson@miad.edu as well the Communications Director, Vivian M. Rothschild at 414-847-3239 or vrothsch@miad.edu

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