How AGA Became an Icon
dEsigN gENiUs
ThaT chaNgEd
ThE BriTish
KiTchEN
for EVEr
T
he kitchen changed during the early 20th
century from a prosaic workspace to an area
which embodied modernist principles.
Modernity “crept in through the back door, via
the kitchen”
3
German time-and-motion studies
created the utilitarian Frankfurt kitchen, while in
Britain the AGA kitchen was to be as modern but
more user-friendly.
Rationally planned and industrially produced, the
emphasis of the ‘New’ Kitchen was placed on the
economic use of labour and resources. As the
household centred on a more self-sucient kind
of family life, the footprint of the home changed in
response. e kitchen was the rst area impacted by
social change.
Until the 1930s the kitchen was most oen a space
separate from family living. e homes of the more
auent households in Victorian England had
kitchens run by cooks as part of a team of domestic
sta. Middle-class Edwardian homes were still built
with a presumption that there would be a maid in the
house whose tasks would include cooking.
Although domestic service declined in the inter-war
years, it still represented the largest occupation for
women until the mid-1930s, when service went into
an irreversible decline. A 2004 study for London’s
Science Museum summarised the impact this was to
bring to the kitchen.
4
“In the space of about 25 years, the kitchen was
transformed om a transient place for the preparation
of food to the new heart of the home. By the end of the
1950s it was a multi-functional living space, as well as
the powerhouse and nerve centre of family life.
“e availability of new materials and nishes, as well
as modern electric appliances came together in the tted
kitchen, changing the look and layout of a space which
was now clearly to be enjoyed rather than merely
endured. e 1930s kitchen was smaller but lighter
than its Edwardian counterpart. It was now no longer
the domain of employees but of the housewife herself.”
Designing the modern kitchen
A pioneer of domestic design, Dorothy Braddell
[Dorothy ‘Darcy’ Adelaide Braddell née Busse, 1889-
1981] can be seen as the mother of the modern
kitchen. She studied at the Regent Street Polytechnic
and the Byam Shaw School of Art and became a
designer and critic of interior design and domestic
planning. She oen worked under her husband’s
name as Mrs Darcy Braddell.
Her work was included in pre- and post-war
exhibitions of British industrial art; she was on
the advisory committee of the Council for Art and
Industry; and she wrote essays and material for trade
publications such as e Gas Journal. She was also a
member of the Council of Scientic Management in
the Home, which formed in 1931, and she became a
design expert for the Ideal Home Exhibitions.
Her innovative kitchen designs for AGA Heat
Ltd were constructed for display at exhibitions
throughout the 1930s and 1940s and she was
specially commissioned to design the AGA Cookery
Advisory Department’s kitchen at the company’s
showrooms at 20 North Audley Street, London W1,
a building which, until the 1990s, retained the name
‘AGA House’ in certain circles.
One of the early exhibitions was the British Industries
Fair of March 1936. Contemporary minutes describe
the event as a huge success… “e AGA Exhibit
proed a very great attraction and their new models
were enthusiastically received by Merchants generally.
DOROTHY BRADDELL
LAWRENCE WRIGHT
MABEL COLLINS
Redefining the kitchen
.
After the First World War, life in the British kitchen began to change.
As domestic service declined, the kitchen was no longer the domain
of servants, but of the housewife herself. AGA Heat placed its trust in
the design ethos for the kitchen in the hands of three visionaries –
Dorothy Braddell, Lawrence Wright and Mabel Collins
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How e AGA Became An Icon
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