The kitchen is more than simply a place to prepare food, but represents the main living quarters of the house, where families and friends gather to laugh, converse, relax and, of course, cook and eat, all in the same room. A good kitchen therefore must possess the flexibility to continually reinvent itself, allowing a multitude of social and homemaking activities to take place in the same room.
The John Pawson Kitchen System for Obumex is precisely one of these remarkable kitchens. Designed to be a flexible kit of elements in which every detail is considered, the Pawson Kitchen ‘deletes the extraneous’ – visual noise is subdued by his pure and minimal forms, making his kitchen a space where the focus rests solely on the social interaction and the activities that that place within it.
It’s extreme functionality does not mean that it is without poetic beauty – even the waterspout and taps are pieces of domestic sculpture. Hailed as a ‘genius of minimalism,’ his kitchens, just as his design objects, discover a simplicity that is remarkably moving in its manipulation of space, light and materials.
Therefore, when Luminaire began to offer kitchens in 1998, Pawson’s kitchen for Obumex was the obvious first choice. To celebrate this new page in Luminaire’s design exploration, John Pawson presented his kitchen at the Luminaire showroom, sharing with captivated guests his design philosophy and his movement toward deleting the extraneous.
Thursday, January 1, 1998
