Home is where the kitchen is

My wife and I have often commented on the excessive "open concept" used in every new house these days. It is one of the peculiar items that has made us more inclined to look for older homes whenever we are house-hunting. The popularity of combining all siting, dining, kitchen, and even entry areas into a single "great room" is as strong and as lasting as the India Pale Ale.

So I was fascinated to read this think piece by Kate Wagner that outlined the history and drivers behind these floorplans.

While primary drivers like cost, building methods, and class needs drove architecture for many years, the 20th century had a lot of other social drivers such as the relative need for privacy. Probably one of the most telling points Wagner makes is about family size:

"Even as plans in elite houses continued to open up throughout the 1920s, the common house retained its interior walls. Why? In many respects, closed rooms existed to maintain a semblance of privacy. Homes were smaller, but families were bigger than they are now: The average number of people in an American household was five in 1880 and 4.3 in 1920; today, it’s 2.5. The reason why the first door to be omitted was frequently that between the living and dining rooms was because those rooms were considered “public” spaces, a holdover from the hall-and-parlor Victorian times"

Some might consider this link tenuous but it's a limb I am willing to go out on! Larger families that are forced into an open concept by reason of limited options always make compromises using technology -- everyone sits awkwardly present, but not present, perhaps even sharing a couch or barspace with a phone or computer to enter their own world.

I agree with Wagner that the singularly identifying focal-point of the open concept in our day is the redefinition of the kitchen from working/private space to public space. The concept is built around selling an idea to homeowners: A beautiful chef's kitchen (with our without real functionality) will encourage me to entertain guests! In reality, it does no such thing for ours or many other families -- constant need for public space to be clean and orderly makes it very difficult to entertain efficiently and show proper hospitality. Combine this with the inevitable fact that most Americans overestimate their own capacity for hospitality -- the public kitchen rarely accomplishes what it promises. In fact, the public kitchen is one of the most psychologically hurtful things We have encountered in a home. The reason is the fact that the mess created from feeding a larger-than-average family on a daily basis is visible at all times from every point in the public areas of the house. The inability to compartmentalize the physical space means she cannot compartmentalize the need to clean it up right away. Granted, kitchen cleaning is a priority anyway! But seeing it constantly has a real negative effect on wellbeing for many people -- my wife included.

Wagner's thesis for change is about the waste and energy inefficiency of the open concept and public kitchen. I don't know if that will end up driving a change back to private utility kitchens. I do know that for now, it is very difficult to find a house that offers anything other than a public kitchen when you consider that millions of new units are being built every day in America with almost every single one of them reinforcing the trend.