This gallery contains photographs from the 1930s showing kitchens in contemporary modern urban British flats. The source of the pictures is a book called Flats: Municipal and Private Enterprise, edited by Dr Bernard Friedman and published in 1938.
The flats described in the volume were seen as representing contemporary ‘best practice’ in modern urban flat design for working- and lower-middle-class tenants. Their kitchens are compact but well-equipped and modern, and the photographs bring out their clean, functional modernity. As well as revealing interesting details of cookers, furniture and kitchen fittings the images, unpeopled and still, are atmospheric and absorbing. The anonymous photographers have captured each of these bright interior spaces in a poised moment of pristine stillness.
In each case the location of the flats illustrated is given along with the name of the architect(s).
Source details: Bernard Friedman (ed.), Flats: Municipal and Private Enterprise (London: Ascot Water Heaters Ltd, 1938).
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| Kensal House, Ladbroke Grove, London. E. Maxwell Fry, 1937.
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Richmond Grove, Canonbury, Islington, London. Alan Brace, 1937. View>> | Metropolitan Police Flats, Elystan Street, Chelsea, London. G.
Mackenzie Trench, 1934-7. View>> |
The Pantiles, Temple Fortune, Golder’s Green, London. J.
B. F. Cowper, 1934. View>> |
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| Park Court, Crystal Palace Road, London. Frederick Gibberd,
1936. View>> |
‘The Gateways’, College Place, Chelsea, London.
Wills & Kaula, 1935. View>> |
Capel Gardens, Pinner, Middlesex. H. J. Mark, 1936.
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Breamore Court, Goodmayes Lane, Ilford, Essex. H. W. Binns, 1935. View>> |
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| Granchester Court, Watford. John Leech, 1937.
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‘Riverbank’, Laleham Road, Staines, Middlesex.
Forbes & Tate, Victor Smith, 1937. View>> |
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