There was report yesterday in The Telegraph reporting the "death of the dining room."
More than a half million dining rooms will be demolished in Britain next year, and Halifax Home Insurance believes the dining room may have disappeared completely by 2020.
In North America, we think of this as the rise of the" great room,"a topic we have treated in this blog a couple of times. A vast transformation took place in our domestic world, and it reflects I think changes in how people work, how they eat, and how they interact as families.
In particular, open kitchen is the material manifestation of feminism. Women complained that the dining room made them servants in their own home, obliged to leave their guests and ferry things to and from the kitchen, charging through heavy doors, turning their backs on the festivities and otherwise obliged to absent themselves from the occasion.
The open kitchen also suits new models of parenting. Americans are inclined to raise their kids in a way that privileges emotional and physical freedom over ceremonial perfection. From this point of view, the dining room was always a problem. It insisted that kids be formal, still, observant, when their natural condition, especially in an over stimulating America, was more active and spontaneous. The great invention of the new kitchen is the island at its center. Kids treat this as a planet around which they orbit during meal time. Less confined, they are more agreeable. More agreeable kids make for more agreeable parents.
For both these public and private purposes, the open kitchen was an important step for the North American home. I have once or twice looked for the figures and couldn’t ever find them. But they must be astronomical. The money that North Americans spent and will spend to open their homes must many hundreds of millions.
But to see this development at work in the UK is much more remarkable, I think. After all, the hold of Victorian propriety, the notion of the dining room as an important ritual location of family life, the belief in formality as a necessary coin in the social economy, one would guess that these are still more active in the UK…or at least not so steeply in decline as they are in the US.
Research I did last spring suggested that the open kitchen is not just an enthusiasm of the British, but may now be seen in Germany, Belgium, France (a little less), and Poland. This suggests either that there are non cultural forces at work here, or that there is a pan-Western cultural trend under way. Certainly, this would be consistent with the shift we see in the world of photograph where the portrait has given way to the more spontaneous action shot.
The new orthodoxy discourages us from making even very tiny generalizations. This means that observations about pan-Western culture should be laughably out of bounds. But I am always surprised how little interest my respondents have in the new strictures of academic discourse. It doesn’t matter how much I scold them, how often I give them the gospel according to Derrida, Foucault, and Baudrillard, they just go right ahead and remodel their kitchens.
References
Borland, Sophie. 2008. Open-plan living leads to death of dining room. The Telegraph. January 29, 2008. here.
Kron, Joan. 1983. Home-Psych: The social psychology of home and decoration. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.
Further reading:
Ames, Kenneth L. 1985. Why Things Matter. The Material Culture of American Homes. Unit 1 ed. Philadelphia: produced for The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum.
Ames, Kenneth. 1992. Death in the Dining Room and Other Tales of Victorian Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Carlisle, Susan G. 1982. French Homes and French Character. Landscape 26, no. 3: 13-23.
Cowan, Ruth Schwartz. 1992. Coal stoves and clean sinks: Housework between 1890 and 1930. American home life, 1880-1930: A social history of spaces and services. editors Jessica H. Foy, and Thomas J. Schlereth, 211-24. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
Denby, David. 1996. Buried Alive: Our children and the avalanche of crud. The New Yorker LXXII, no. 19: 48-58.
Doucet, Michael J., and John C. Weaver. 1985. Material Culture and the North American House: The Era of the Common Man, 1870-1920. The Journal of American History 72: 580-587.
Dugan, I. Jeanne. 1997. Someone’s in the kitchen with Martha. Business Week July 28, 1997: 58-59.
Foy, Jessica H., and Thomas J. Schlereth, editors. 1992. American home life, 1880-1930: A social history of spaces and services. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
Gowans, Alan. 1986. The comfortable house: North American suburban architecture, 1890-1930. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Laumann, Edward. O., and James. S. House. 1970. Living Room Styles and Social Attributes: The Patterning of Material Artifacts in a Modern Urban Community. Sociology and Social Research 54, no. 3: 321-42.
Monkhouse, Christopher. 1982. The Spinning Wheel as Artifact, Symbol, and Source of Design. Victorian Furniture: Essays from a Victorian Society Symposium. editor Kenneth L. Ames, 155-72. Nineteenth
Plante, Ellen M. 1995. The American kitchen, 1700 to the present : from hearth to highrise. New York, NY: Facts on File.
Pratt, Gerry. 1981. The House as an Expression of Social Worlds. Housing and Identity: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. editor James S. Duncan, 135-80. London: Croom Helm.
Rapoport, A. 1969. House Form and Culture. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Thompson, Eleanor McD., editor. 1998. The American home: material culture, domestic space, and family life. Winterthur, DE: Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum.
Vickery, Amanda. 1993. Women and the World of Goods: A Lancashire Consumer and Her Possessions, 1751-81. Consumption and The World of Goods. editors John Brewer, and Roy Porter, 274-301. London: Routledge.
“open kitchen is the material manifestation of feminism”
This is an interesting observation. I’d always put it down to growing informality but their is likely a healthy dose of redefined family roles as well – possibly womens displeasure as you suggest and possibly men increased interest in cooking – though that may be a by product of the great room.
Thought provoking.
I’m no history buff, but this is a kind of coming-full-circle, isn’t it? Before civilization got all…well, *civilized*, things were communal and informal of necessity. I mean, I’ve seen those drawings of log cabins and mud huts and such with the one room. You don’t see too many formal dining rooms in a yeti.
Did this, like other “niceties” (in quotes b/c I’ve never thought them very nice, just bourgeois) start with the rich and trickle down?
Another thought is how many great movie party scenes (All About Eve leaps to mind) will vanish once the dining room has completely faded from view? Where will all those great sidebar conversations take place? The walk-in closet that was converted to a home office?
Grant, thought provoking post with a dynamite conclusion.
Have you ever lived in a home with a “great room?” It makes for an interesting dynamic. I think it is part of a movement from a bit earlier called “cocooning,” I venture to guess.
There is a drawback; you can’t close the door on a cluttered kitchen.
I’ll bet the Brits have a much bigger adjustment than we do in the U.S.
It is very interesting. In Denmark we could observe in the last 3 years the boom of the kitchen market. People were spending money on rearranging their kitchens with smart and desiner kitchen furniture. Kitchen sellers were advertising everywhere, magainzines featured kitchen themes constantly. The main theme was around: the conversation kitchen. The whole family and social live in general moved into kitchen. Kitchen and food making became the center of family life and the point that gathers people again in their busy and duties filled every day life. Kitchen became a place where you aren’t only prepare food, you also talk and connect with other people. “Great room” of human interactions.
It is very interesting. In Denmark we could observe in the last 3 years the boom of the kitchen market. People were spending money on rearranging their kitchens with smart and desiner kitchen furniture. Kitchen sellers were advertising everywhere, magainzines featured kitchen themes constantly. The main theme was around: the conversation kitchen. The whole family and social live in general moved into kitchen. Kitchen and food making became the center of family life and the point that gathers people again in their busy and duties filled every day life. Kitchen became a place where you aren’t only prepare food, you also talk and connect with other people. “Great room” of human interactions.
“After all, the hold of Victorian propriety, the notion of the dining room as an important ritual location of family life, the belief in formality as a necessary coin in the social economy”
Have you actually been to britain any time since 1979? I’m not particularly convinced any of your points is at all relevant in today’s Britain.
Plenty of studies showing how noone sits as a family any more at meal times, and plenty to show what a good effect it has.
That said, the open kitchen is a great idea full stop, I have one myself.
Oh, and again in post Abigail’s Party Britain (at least in my thirtysomething, londoncentric experience) it’s almost exclusively the male who cooks for dinner parties.
just to clarify, its sitting together as a family that has the good effect, not vice-versa; should be obvious but not when I mangle the language like that. Apologies.
Peter, a couple of years ago I walked past a window at Marshall Fields in Chicago that showed a chef’s hat and jacket, now being made available to a general public, and sure enough respondents said that men were more involved in preparing a meal for guests. They called this the Emeril (sp?) effect. Just to doubt the motives of our sex, I think we can put this down to showing off (bam!) or to the fact that now that the kitchen and the dining room are one, there’s no place for the husband to hide his inactivity. Thanks for your comment. Best, Grant
Communicatrix: Yes, this takes as full circle, in a manner of speaking, to the great hall of the medieval manner, except that I don’t believe that latter had stainless steel ranges. There’s a great article by Hoskins called the “Great Rebuilding of Rural England,” in which he talks about the filling in of these halls, in pursuit of privacy, in the early modern period. Thanks, Grant
Carol, I live in a old house where everything is very well segmented! Thanks, Grant
Daria, thanks for the Denmark data. In North America, kitchens becoming social centers esp. during parties, because they were the more informal alternative, but now that (some) living rooms have been removed, this formal/informal distinction disappears. I wonder what difference this makes. There’s no way of marking your social intentions and tolerances…not with choice of room anyway. Thanks, Grant
Piersy, I’ve done research in the UK many times since 79, and as Faulker said of the south, not only is the past not dead, its not past. But of course things have changed. But that’s not all they’ve done. Thanks, Grant
…and another thing.
Apologies again Grant, firstly I didn’t mean all your points, just those I highlighted, plus rereading my post I seem to come across somewhat brusque; not my intention, perhaps a facet of first-thing-in-the-morning-syndrome.
I’m always a little wary when sterotyped preconceptions like the hold of Victorian propriety’ get applied to my homeland. Clearly in your case these aren’t preconceived, but perhaps you indulge yourself in lending them rather too much weight.
There’s great concern here at the lack of any propriety, which is why we end up with tory MPs and the daily mail constantly trotting out simplistic soundbites about family, and victorian values, and even, god forbid, class. But such is life.
Sweeping statements also raise my defenses somewhat, like “shift we see in the world of photograph where the portrait has given way to the more spontaneous action shot.”
As a semi-pro I can testify to the portrait being a timeless format that will never go, and the spontaneous action shot has been a healthy facet of the art for quite some time too; see Henri C-B, Capa et al.
Aaaanyhoo, I stumbled upon your blog not too long of time ago and am finding it fascinating reading, so by way of reinforcing the Hugh Grant school of British stereotype, once again, sorry … sorry 😉
Piersy, no offense taken, I think we have to see the continuities even and esp. when they are eclipsed by recent developments. There was no great leap forward, no abolishment of everything that went before. All the more reason to keep an eye out for the smuggling in of the old conventions, and yours is after all the culture that minted them. As to photography, I am speaking not of pros or semi-pros but the snap happy amateur and this one I have documented down to the ground. Thanks for your comments. Much appreciated. Best, Grant
What about maids and feminism? Would we have open kitchens if most married women had maids to address food preparation? Have you ever been to an apartment designed in the 1930s, when women had maids? Tiny kitchen, large entertaining area.
Yes, it is bougie to have a dining room and use it.
In Eastern Europe, people still socialize around the table. Depends on class, though.
I think it is weird that in the US, rooms (other than bedrooms) do not have doors. You cook in an open kitchen, and the noise, smell, heat travels throughout the house.
Kitchens are a great topic.
Most Chinese apartment kitchens have a door, often a sliding door (or at least a sliding window) and, interestingly, nearly all have a LOCK on the door. In Shanghai, men will most often be the cooks, by the way. People in some parts of the world find it odd that anyone would want to socialize in the kitchen. People may have cutting boards on the floor, chickens being plucked, woks aflame. . .all that.
Forty-five years ago, in small-town Western Kansas, my maternal grandmother’s “modern” (and all electric) kitchen allowed the woman at the sink to look over the heads of her grandchildren without so much as turning around, let alone opening a door. There was a great long booth in front of a big picture window looking out on the neighbor across the street that stood alone in a great green (or golden) wheat field. The kitchen counter was behind that booth, with a little shelf between the kitchen counter right at a twelve-year-old head level. Salt and pepper shakers lived there (as handy for the cook as for the diners). Grandmother passed french toast and gossip across the back of that booth for about fifty yearsl The adjoining, and separate, dining room was for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and winter-time birthdays. All other meals were in this great kitchen, or outside at the patio table, by the grill.
And grandmother’s mother’s house in Northeast Kansas had a great square kitchen with a table big enough for all twelve children and three farm hands. Women managed kitchens like these the way shop-floor supervisors manage a production line. They are engaged with the business of cooking and the business of eating, start to finish.
Grant, the great open kitchen is hardly anything new, at least not to farm families. Perhaps it is those little dining rooms that are the odd innovation.
Its a great topic, but I think we are talking about the end of some sort of upper-class, London town-house dining room that may have only existed in our Masterpiece Theater dreams.
I’m hungry, now; partly for some house-plan data, and partly for some french toast.
And there were the “good old days” when the kitchen wasn’t even in the house – since it tended to catch on fire. As I ramble along my synapses, it also occurs to me that far fewer people these days actually cook – they open, heat up, bring in – so having an “open” kitchen makes more sense, since it’s more a social setting than a food prep area. (If you regularly cooked pasta sauce from scratch or fried fish – well, the openness wouldn’t be a good idea.)
Contrary femme (and avid cook) that I am, one of my big “must haves” in buying a house is that the kitchen was at least somewhat separated from the rest of the house. I don’t want to walk in the front door and the first thing I see is the kitchen sink.
(And then there’s the absurdity of people spending fortunes on trophy kitchens, complete with Viking stoves they never use. Ah, the absurdity of humans!)
Great room, so nicely designed.
The Chinese example above is interesting and contrasts with the Japanese, where the kitchen is often (but not always) about food prep — cutting, slicing and storage. While the preparing, happens at the table — often with single burner gas stoves in the middle of the table for making shabu shabu (hot pots) or other kinds of communal soups. The common to Westerners site of the sushi restaurant or teppanyaki (like Benihana) where the food is cut and prepared in the kitchen, but the food is assembled as a show for the guests. I don’t have an anthropological explanation for this. (The Japanese do love food. A good percentage of their TV shows are cooking shows, and talk shows often ask their pop star guests to prepare a dish on stage.) But the difference fascinates, as the Japanese are not known for being more open to exhibitionism than the Chinese.
Great room, so nicely designed.
Joaquin, that image was chosen to a purpose, and FYI there is a “no snobs” rule at This Intersection. Best, Grant
Feminism? I think we are often too quick to award feminism the badge of cultural molding.
In the US, the dining room was cracked open by the lowly TV tray. Fleeing dining formality to watch the Ed Sullivan Show, a line of sight to the tube became the family geometry long before feminism freed mom from being a server.
Stocking a dining room with a TV just isn’t done, so while the good silver sits unpolished in the hutch alongside the fancy dishes, the clock ticks on abandoning the whole enterprise to be replaced with, do you see it coming?, the home theatre/game room.