Kitchen Design and Theology
Abstract:
But at some point in the 50's or 60's (forgive my
lack of historical house-building knowledge, here) people started building
"living rooms" that nobody actually lived in and kitchens tucked away in the
back of their houses, as if they were going to ring their staff and have their
help bring the dishes out while they entertained in the "living
room."
Body:
I just mopped the floor.
Every time I mop the floor I have time to reflect, and the subject upon which I reflect is this: crumb-catchers. Specifically, why crumb-catchers? Why that little space under the cabinets that makes the floor so difficult to clean? When I've asked this question aloud people respond "so you don't bump your toes and scuff the cabinets." What kind of stupid answer is that? How about making the counter-top extend further so you a) have more room to work and b) don't kick the stupid cabinets? Why not put a steel plate around the base of the cabinets? How about amputating your feet and walking on your ankles?
While I'm on the subject of kitchen design, let me rant for a minute about soffits. There's a word for these things. I learned what they were called by watching TLC or This Old House or somesuch. This is the area above the kitchen cabinets that some people decide to wall off. Neurons in someone's brain actually had to fire to make this happen. It was an intentional decision. Somebody looked at the space above the cabinets and thought, "hm. What do we do with that space above the cabinets? Put in more cabinets? Use it as a shelf to store all the souvenir coffee mugs that people collect? No, I've a better idea. Let's wall it off. Who could possibly need more storage space?" When I've voiced my amazement over this decision aloud, I sometimes get the response, "well, you don't want to look at the stove vent pipe, do you?" I don't care! Paint the thing fire engine red and let it be a design feature or something. If we're going to talk about the aesthetics of kitchen design, let's start with the spaghetti that has dried to the floor under my freakin' crumb-catcher.
Somebody in the last decade got smart and realized the kitchen was where people spent the majority of their time in their house. Newer houses have bigger kitchens in a central location That's because we prepare our food there and eat it. "Primitive" cultures often had their cook fires in a central location, because they understood this idea. But at some point in the 50's or 60's (forgive my lack of historical house-building knowledge, here) people started building "living rooms" that nobody actually lived in and kitchens tucked away in the back of their houses, as if they were going to ring their staff and have their help bring the dishes out while they entertained in the "living room." In spite of getting direct mail featuring photographs of white families in front of their McMansions which says, and I wish I were kidding:
...life is too short to clean your own house...
I've found that we are simply too poor to be able to afford our own cook and wait staff. Therefore the whole living room / kitchen / formal dining room arrangement is pretty irrelevant. Now, don't for a minute think that I'm complaining about my own house. I really, really like the parsonage we live in. It's the best place we've lived since we've been married. It's just that I see these design - we'll call them "features," with the understanding that, like the PR experts at Microsoft, we really mean "bugs" - in most houses.
There are some key things that go on in whatever kitchen we use. We prepare food there. We eat there. We hang out and talk there. I will, at least once each presidential administration, mop the sticky goo off the floor (or at least smear it around a bit). We must also store approximately two metric tonnes of plastic containers with mismatched lids. We do not need soffits or crumb-catchers.
And would it kill someone to put a drain in the floor? I've asked this question before as well. The response I got was "well, apparently they do that in Sweden." Well, hooray for the Swedes! God bless 'em! Can we please ask them to invade?
Once, when I was Resident Manager at the theology student housing at Candler, as I was using a shop-vac to suck up water from an overflowing bathtub on the second floor at 3 AM, I asked the Japanese theology students, a very sweet couple, why they had not been concerned when their bathtub began to overflow. He said, "I thought the drain in the floor would take care of it." I said, "there isn't a drain in the floor." He asked, "why not?" Exactly! Some homebuilder - someone American - should have thought, "you know, sometimes bathtubs overflow. Sometimes dishwashers leak. Sometimes, when people are operating indoor plumbing, water will actually flow in a downward direction. Maybe we should put a DRAIN IN THE FLOOR. And because grown men occasionally but of course very seldom miss the potty while urinating, perhaps we should reconsider carpeting the bathroom."
Since I'm always on the lookout for implicit theologies, I'm thinking there is an implicit theology wrapped up in the design of houses. I think the dominant theology of the 50's and 60's was sort of a traditionalist evangelical pseudo-Puritanism a la Jonathan Edwards, and the house design reflects his famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Crumb-catchers and soffits are a holdover from this earlier period, and they are here to remind us that we are very, very bad people, and that God doesn't so much love us as hate our stinking guts, and were it not for grace He would fling us into the eternal fire and torment which we truly deserve.
This may be why keep procrastinating about mopping the kitchen.
Every time I mop the floor I have time to reflect, and the subject upon which I reflect is this: crumb-catchers. Specifically, why crumb-catchers? Why that little space under the cabinets that makes the floor so difficult to clean? When I've asked this question aloud people respond "so you don't bump your toes and scuff the cabinets." What kind of stupid answer is that? How about making the counter-top extend further so you a) have more room to work and b) don't kick the stupid cabinets? Why not put a steel plate around the base of the cabinets? How about amputating your feet and walking on your ankles?
While I'm on the subject of kitchen design, let me rant for a minute about soffits. There's a word for these things. I learned what they were called by watching TLC or This Old House or somesuch. This is the area above the kitchen cabinets that some people decide to wall off. Neurons in someone's brain actually had to fire to make this happen. It was an intentional decision. Somebody looked at the space above the cabinets and thought, "hm. What do we do with that space above the cabinets? Put in more cabinets? Use it as a shelf to store all the souvenir coffee mugs that people collect? No, I've a better idea. Let's wall it off. Who could possibly need more storage space?" When I've voiced my amazement over this decision aloud, I sometimes get the response, "well, you don't want to look at the stove vent pipe, do you?" I don't care! Paint the thing fire engine red and let it be a design feature or something. If we're going to talk about the aesthetics of kitchen design, let's start with the spaghetti that has dried to the floor under my freakin' crumb-catcher.
Somebody in the last decade got smart and realized the kitchen was where people spent the majority of their time in their house. Newer houses have bigger kitchens in a central location That's because we prepare our food there and eat it. "Primitive" cultures often had their cook fires in a central location, because they understood this idea. But at some point in the 50's or 60's (forgive my lack of historical house-building knowledge, here) people started building "living rooms" that nobody actually lived in and kitchens tucked away in the back of their houses, as if they were going to ring their staff and have their help bring the dishes out while they entertained in the "living room." In spite of getting direct mail featuring photographs of white families in front of their McMansions which says, and I wish I were kidding:
...life is too short to clean your own house...
I've found that we are simply too poor to be able to afford our own cook and wait staff. Therefore the whole living room / kitchen / formal dining room arrangement is pretty irrelevant. Now, don't for a minute think that I'm complaining about my own house. I really, really like the parsonage we live in. It's the best place we've lived since we've been married. It's just that I see these design - we'll call them "features," with the understanding that, like the PR experts at Microsoft, we really mean "bugs" - in most houses.
There are some key things that go on in whatever kitchen we use. We prepare food there. We eat there. We hang out and talk there. I will, at least once each presidential administration, mop the sticky goo off the floor (or at least smear it around a bit). We must also store approximately two metric tonnes of plastic containers with mismatched lids. We do not need soffits or crumb-catchers.
And would it kill someone to put a drain in the floor? I've asked this question before as well. The response I got was "well, apparently they do that in Sweden." Well, hooray for the Swedes! God bless 'em! Can we please ask them to invade?
Once, when I was Resident Manager at the theology student housing at Candler, as I was using a shop-vac to suck up water from an overflowing bathtub on the second floor at 3 AM, I asked the Japanese theology students, a very sweet couple, why they had not been concerned when their bathtub began to overflow. He said, "I thought the drain in the floor would take care of it." I said, "there isn't a drain in the floor." He asked, "why not?" Exactly! Some homebuilder - someone American - should have thought, "you know, sometimes bathtubs overflow. Sometimes dishwashers leak. Sometimes, when people are operating indoor plumbing, water will actually flow in a downward direction. Maybe we should put a DRAIN IN THE FLOOR. And because grown men occasionally but of course very seldom miss the potty while urinating, perhaps we should reconsider carpeting the bathroom."
Since I'm always on the lookout for implicit theologies, I'm thinking there is an implicit theology wrapped up in the design of houses. I think the dominant theology of the 50's and 60's was sort of a traditionalist evangelical pseudo-Puritanism a la Jonathan Edwards, and the house design reflects his famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Crumb-catchers and soffits are a holdover from this earlier period, and they are here to remind us that we are very, very bad people, and that God doesn't so much love us as hate our stinking guts, and were it not for grace He would fling us into the eternal fire and torment which we truly deserve.
This may be why keep procrastinating about mopping the kitchen.
Posted: Sat - December 16, 2006 at 01:44 PM |
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Personae:
All Consuming | Del.icio.us | Last.fm | MySpace | Zaadz
contact: dave at davebarnhart dot net
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Published On: Dec 16, 2006 01:44 PM
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Published On: Dec 16, 2006 01:44 PM