Although domestic technology is seemingly designed to reduce work, it has mostly served to heighten the existing division of roles within the home.
In the first half of the 20th century, the kitchen was treated as a technical problem: a space that had to be precisely aligned with the body that worked in it. The 1938 Bruynzeel kitchen by Piet Zwart is a clear example. What appears to be a fresh, modern kitchen was in fact a carefully engineered system designed around one specific user: the housewife.
Inspired by the efficiency movement and time-and-motion studies, household work was approached as a factory on a small scale. The kitchen became an assembly line designed to minimise steps, reduce bending and keep everything within reach. The height of the worktop, the position of the stove and the layout of the cupboards were precisely tailored to the average female body. This made the work lighter, but it also fixed who was expected to do it. What was presented as progress simultaneously reinforced the division of roles in the home.
Remarkably, this way of thinking still forms the basis of modern kitchens. Even today, kitchens are designed according to ergonomic standards, work triangles and optimised circulation routes, still based on a supposedly average body.