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Show New Kitchen to Be Two Rooms in One Pots and Pans Banished; The Heating Unit Does All but the Marketing The kitchen of tomorrow will lead a double life. Previewed recently as a sample of what the future holds in store for the American Ameri-can housewife, it converts instantly in-stantly from a strictly utili-. utili-. tarian, high-efficiency workroom work-room into welcome extra living liv-ing space that accommodates baby's playpen or a few tables of bridge with equal aplomb. More than that, it banishes pots and pans, eliminates bending and stooping. H. Creston Doner, director direc-tor of Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass company's design department in Toledo, To-ledo, Ohio, conceived the kitchen and built a full-scale model. He estimates es-timates that it will enable Mrs. America to do 75 per cent of her work while seated. Engineered as carefully as a bomber, the kitchen gains space and efficiency by building-in such usually usu-ally unwieldy and inconvenient kitchen aids as the waffle iron, toaster, toast-er, sandwich grill and food mixer. Infinite attention to detail has resulted re-sulted in the incorporation of numerous nu-merous features that, minor indi- I 1 f;$ . r -.1 A close-up of the special compartment compart-ment for heating ready-to-eat foods in containers. Cooking in the kitchen kitch-en of tomorrow will be done in special spe-cial glass-topped recessed vessels like those at the rear, also used for serving. A built-in toaster is just back of the warming compartment, and a built-in food mixer is at right foreground. S I - - ' u f ? j J . Y'-Vi' T rrr " V? tut L - " - J View of the kitchen of tomorrow with panels raised over working units. These panels when lowered conceal all equipment beneath wood-grained wood-grained covers which form a buffet matching other furniture. At left is the oven with its glass hood raised, next is a cooking unit with built-in waffle iron, cooking vessels and food mixer. Splash panel on sink has vitrolite glass backing and is self illuminated when raised. At right is a combination glass enclosed refrigerator, serving bar, and transparent glass china cabinet. Large window lets in adequate supply of daylight. vidually, amount in the aggregate to hours of time, effort and energy saved each day. For instance, sink faucets operate by foot pedals, so both hands can work freely; cutlery and other small utensils are fastened neatly to a wall panel which swings out of sight when not needed, reducing cut fingers fin-gers and lost tempers to a minimum; mini-mum; the refrigerator and china cabinet are accessible from both kitchen and dining alcove; the heat of the refrigerator motor dries the dish towels. Kitchen to Blend With Other Rooms. "Of course 'tomorrow's kitchen' Is a radical departure from convention," conven-tion," Doner said. In the past "it has been impossible or undesirable to use the kitchen for anything but food preparation because there was no way to conceal the obvious fact that it was a kitchen. Thus the room was used only a few hours a day an uneconomic waste of space. By building major appliances in permanently per-manently we could use them as integral in-tegral parts of the architectural design. de-sign. The result is that we have been able to disguise or conceal them so that the kitchen, when not in use, blends harmoniously with other living rooms. 1 Most startling innovation is the cooking unit. Abandoning the old-style old-style stove with stoop-over oven and fuel-wasting open burners, there has been developed a compact, comprehensive compre-hensive unit that does everything but the shopping. Its glass-covered recessed vessels perform every cooking operation. They can even be used as individual ovens. ' Closing Clos-ing the sliding, self-illuminated cover cov-er converts the unit into a tireless cooker. When not in use all equipment HI V.rf -5 w- " ill ! ttl -1 This sliding glass panel closes off the service counter and confines cooking odors to the kitchen. Counter Coun-ter actually is the top of the refrigerator, refrig-erator, other end of which supports a glass china cabinet. Revolving glass refrigerator shelves, lower right, bring often-used foods within easy reach of either kitchen or dining din-ing room. is concealed beneath sliding covers, forming a long, handsome buffet finished fin-ished in a wood-grain- pattern that harmonizes with other furniture and woodwork. Huge picture windows bring the outdoors into both kitchen and dining alcove and richly colored, col-ored, easily cleaned vitrolite walls blend with the decor of other living rooms. In the dining alcove the glass-topped table folds against the wall to form a striking mural, ingeniously in-geniously framed by its folding legs. In a flash both rooms are available for games, study or other activities. |