Summary

In this article, Sigal Davidi explores the question of how the Jewish community in Palestine responded to the idea of the “new woman” before the creation of the state of Israel, Sigel largely traces the architect Lotte Cohn’s career in Palestine and her theory which advocated for designs that responded the needs of women. During this period of the 1920’s there was a broader debate in the European architecture community (especially Germany) that sought to redesign the kitchen and domestic spaces for women. This re-examination was largely a response to housewives being dissatisfied with their work and role. This new move to redesign the kitchen and the domestic side of the house pulled from modern ideas of functionalism and adopting a “scientific method” to make cooking and other domestic work as efficient as possible. This is exemplified in the popular “Frankfurt kitchen” Which is a small compact and efficient layout. Notably this design was pushed largely by men as women were the extreme minority in the industry and heavily excluded from the discourse. Throughout her experience in residential design in Palestine Cohn argued for a kitchen that was based more on the lived experiences of women instead of some prescriptive concept detached from experience. Some features included a larger kitchen with a dining room table to help make the kitchen more social. Notably, her ideas weren’t adopted reflecting the discrimination and strongly gendered roles that dominated that period. This article illustrates both the prescriptive ideals of modernism on the domestic household and the large gender imbalance both in the industry and in the discourse and in society more generally.

• The design of the kitchen drastically impacted the experience of women and the architectural designs of the kitchen reinforced gender-inequalities and the traditional role of the housewife.
• Designing for the right audience or group by listening to them is critical.
• Architecture can enforce societal roles and how you design a space affects to a degree how people interact and work in that space, their mood, etc.
• To what extend does architectural design reinforce cultural norms and functional roles?
• To what extent does architecture reflect cultural ideals in design vs cause its continued propagation?