The Serious About Food Kitchen LAB

From April 4 to April 9, La Triennale di Milano hosted the exhibition The Serious About Food Kitchen LAB, a laboratory created by KitchenAid to experience the possible interpretations of the ideal kitchen for passionate makers.

Rachel Laxer Interiors, Tor Interiors, Victor Vasilev, Kensaku Oshiro, Castiglia Associati, Marc Sadler, Bernhardt & Vella and matali crasset: eight international firms from Japan to UK, passing of course through Italy where the kitchen has always been the beating heart of the house, they were asked to give a serious touch to the style of this room. The result has been exciting, with someone daring futuristic visions, and someone else remaining in line with the more classic styles.

Four types of kitchen have been represented. The exhibition starts with the LIVING KITCHEN, or integrated kitchen: a well-established trend that sees food preparation as a lively, convivial experience. The workstations and the dining seats coexist in the same environment to enjoy the chef at work like an entertainment moment. The LIVING KITCHEN make you feel a guest of a starred restaurant, but in the comfort of your own home. Then the MATERIAL KITCHEN which focuses on the material, enhancing its strength and identity with every detail of the design. In this edition, the architects used the steel, the original one of KitchenAid appliances, which remains the preferred material of top chefs to work in an aseptic environment, but with a distinctive style. 

The exhibition continues with the DYNAMIC KITCHEN, represented by a series of modular kitchens that take shape around the chef, changing from time to time and favoring the chef's needs. The exhibition has also explored the concept BEYOND THE KITCHEN, for those who consider nutrition the center of their daily life. This approach involves the whole home and includes a space for the cultivation of raw materials, even in urban areas, in a self-sufficient utopian system.

Through The Serious About Food Kitchen LAB, KitchenAid has launched a purely creative challenge, without imposing material limits to the designers. Visitors have been able to watch the kitchen from a new perspective and explore possible architectural interpretations in a futuristic and technological environment. Crossing the threshold of Aulenti Gallery, inside the museum, you enter a dark environment, lightened up by LED channels on the floor. The beating heart, the engine of the whole experience, is a KitchenAid Made to Measure island in stainless steel that dominates the center of the room in all its brilliance. The surface is animated by images and propagates a voice that narrates the project.

Starting from there, one after another, successive light inputs move the focus from the island to the wall screens where fluctuating polymers give shape to the eight kitchens on stage. The show is accompanied by a background of contemporary sounds that recall the clink of utensils, reinterpreted with electronic and post-industrial influences.

The LAB experience confirms KitchenAid as a trusted ally, a participant in the evolution of technology, able to offer, for almost a century, always new visions. Apart from the multifunctional stainless steel island with integrated appliances, visitors have admired the iconic Stand Mixer, in Empire Red, and one of the ultimate black oven from the brand new Black Steel Collection. In the beautiful venue of La Triennale di Milano, a landmark for the international design community, the KitchenAid appliances stand out in all their finery, either the one in the room, either the one included in designers’ projects on the walls. The exhibition seems to remind us that cooking is art: a beautiful world in which creativity and functionality combine to give joy both to eyes and palate.

Have you ever experienced a kitchen in this way?

Do not worry if you missed the Milan edition, KitchenAid will bring The Serious About Food Kitchen LAB around Europe with stops in Paris, Berlin and London. Follow us to discover the next dates! And if the eight kitchens have inspired you, it is your time! The LAB will evolve into a contest to stimulate emerging architects and designers on their Serious About Food vision.

During the exhibition at La Triennale di Milano, KitchenAid introduced its first project in the competition which adds a category to the existing four: THE MAKERS WORKSHOP, a laboratory designed by Massimo Marzorati. Pick one of the five categories and create your own vision of the Serious About Food Kitchen. In the next months KitchenAid will communicate the rules of the contest that will end up with an awards ceremony during the next Eurocucina trade show, in Milan.

In April 2018, you could be the protagonist of the exhibition. Stay tuned for all the details. Serious About Food, Serious About Making!