Not so long ago, just some 200 years ago, the kitchen was a small utility room. There was only one desire in the closet set aside for kitchen needs: to cook food as quickly as possible (lunch, dinner or breakfast) and leave this place. Beauty, convenience and hygiene were absolutely nothing to do with it. The first real kitchen plan, somehow close to modern standards, appeared only in the XIX century.

Today, after more than two centuries, we can safely say that the kitchen is one of the most important places in the house. Even if you do not like to cook and do not spend much time in this room, anyway, there is a kitchen in every home. People can be divided into two large camps in relation to the kitchen: those for whom the kitchen is the center of the whole house (in fact, a kind of club), where there is a direct communication between friends and family members, and those who have a kitchen associated with boring daily duties, everyday life, routine.

For the first group, the kitchen is a space for living, a place of rest, parties, intimate conversations, and not just a room for cooking. The morning begins here, everyone meets again in the kitchen in the evening, discusses the events of the past day, shares the impressions, makes plans for tomorrow, discusses ambitious projects. This category also includes people for whom cooking is a creative process and not a household duty. In other words, the kitchen for such people is the space where they cook, communicate and live. As a rule, people from this camp treat the arrangement of the kitchen as the arrangement of the main place in the house. It is for them that the leading kitchen manufacturers are introducing their innovations, environmental and quality materials are being developed for them, new aesthetic possibilities are being sought, and designers are creating for them. And not only kitchen designers but also the built-in equipment, sinks, mixers. The entire kitchen industry aims to do the maximum for these people. In fact, it is these people who stimulate the development of the industry. Tuned for true comfort, they perfectly distinguish real innovations from fake ones. They will appreciate the new guide rails (and will be ready to pay for them), which make it easy to open and close a large kitchen drawer, even loaded to capacity, because this is their comfort. They will react with bewilderment to the remote controller to open the upper cabinets: in order to open the cabinet, you must first find the remote controller. They are ready for new tactile, aesthetic sensations, to a new level of comfort in the kitchen. They will certainly be interested in the best veneers, matte and velvet lacquers, designer taps, convenient sinks, and unique storage systems that allow you conveniently store everything you need for everyday use. Here, in the kitchen, their life, they cook here, communicate and live.

When manufacturers run out of ideas on how to meet the needs of this first, sufficiently demanding category of customers, they move on to the second group. Everything is easier with these ones. They do not like the kitchen, they just endure it (they see the kitchen as a place to cook borsch and hide dirty dishes). For them, manufacturers solve only one problem: how best to hide the kitchen. People from this category are not particularly interested in the beauty of veneer or the tactile sensations from the facades and countertops, the uniqueness of the design or the possibility of a composite solution. They do not live here, they endure it. Therefore, the idea of hiding the kitchen in the closet and seeing instead of an interesting design combining different materials, different heights and the right light, the same size and materials of the cabinet doors makes them full of excitement. Whew, hid the routine! Freedom! Just the attitude to the cabinet is much better. Yes, by the way, we also need to cover the sink and a tap (it’s annoying, reminds of possible dirty pots). And the producers have an answer to this: let’s turn the kitchen island into just a chest, and if someone suddenly needs to use a tap, let them open the lid of the chest, push the tap and… pour something somewhere. That’s beneath them to be engaged in kitchen work!

Of course, I exaggerate a little, but … just a little. When there is nothing to say, someone will just keep silent, and someone will start talking complete nonsense. And there was a lot of such nonsense at Eurocucina 2016 in Milan. Most. With a few exceptions.

What to say, when there is nothing to say? I hope fresh ideas will appear in two years. Will wait…