Johnny recently wrote about about Alice in Wonderland’s imaginary kitchen and asked for ideas inspired by this theme. He wrote that fairy tales and children’s stories are great source material. When I think about Alice in Wonderland, I am reminded of Mary Blair, one of my favorite artists.

An unassuming quiet-spoken woman, she dominated Disney design for half a century. The stylishness and vibrant color of Disney films in the early 1940s through mid-1950s came primarily from her brush. In her prime, she was an amazingly prolific American artist who enlivened and influenced the not-so-small worlds of film, print, theme parks, architectural decor, and advertising. Her art represented joyful creativity and communicated pure pleasure to the viewer. Her exuberant fantasies brimmed with beauty, charm and wit, melding a child’s fresh eye with adult experience.

Animator Marc Davis, who put Mary’s exciting use of color on a par with Matisse, recalled, “She brought modern art to Walt in a way that no one else did. He was so excited about her work.” Mary’s unique color and styling greatly influenced many Disney postwar productions most notably The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan. Mary assisted in the design of the It’s a Small World attraction for the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair (blame the music on the Sherman Brothers). She contributed to the design of many exhibits, attractions, and murals at the theme parks in California and Florida, including the fanciful murals in the Grand Canyon Concourse at the Contemporary Hotel.

As Johnny mentioned, the literal translation of ideas can capture atmospheres and events, similar to the way scenes from films capture an emotion or experience we identify with. Mary Blair’s art perfectly captures the scale and color of my early boomer childhood, and takes me there with the speed of PF Flyers to hideouts and imaginary forts of blankets over furniture. Though much of Blair’s work veers toward abstraction, her use of color and the storytelling aspect in her pictures, especially the underlying emotions expressed in much of her art, somehow transport me to a cozy and dreamlike place.

Instead of a single color or one veneer, we playfully use a mixture of color and wood in a painterly fashion.  Legendary animator Frank Thomas said, “Mary was the first artist I knew of to have different shades of red next to each other. You just didn’t do that! But Mary made it work.”

Like Carroll’s surrealist creation, a kitchen can bring such imaginative pleasure. Johnny says to escape is a great release; to dream and not quite understand is in some ways like visiting Venice, Machu Picchu or Gaudi’s Parc Guell. Blair’s biographer John Canamaker perhaps put it best when he wrote, “I feel great pleasure merely gazing at a work by Mary Blair. It’s as delicious as feasting on rainbows.”

If you take away the dominance of food, what comes next? If cooking was the purpose of the 19th and early 20th century kitchen, what activities will take us into this century’s kitchen space?

As back rooms that were places of work for women, where the unremitting daily tasks of caring and providing were carried out, kitchens were not places of fun or leisure, but were rather more of duty and purpose. As household tasks are now increasingly shared between both genders, the contemporary kitchen has become a place where we can mix our domestic activities with enjoyable ones such as chatting, snacking or reading the newspaper.

In these happier kitchen times, our spaces are tailored to suit our instinctive needs – space, light, communication and nature. The kitchen is now a liberated space. So what’s next? What behaviours will influence how kitchen designers create  the kitchen of the future? To predict or anticipate this we need to look at how we live in and utilise the whole house.

Rooms have broken down their ‘use’ barriers, essentially become more multipurpose and open plan. Their conventional labels don’t necessarily apply anymore. Technology (and I say this with care because I have always been a bit of a sceptic regarding claims that it changes us as people) is playing a big role.

The proliferation of iPods, 3G phones and laptops democratically spreads the use of technology to allow it everywhere in the house. Every room can now be a media room, work room, game room or reading room, although not a kitchen! The cellular structure of the house is disintegrating and the kitchen is not just not exempt, but at the forefront.

Over the last few decades, the kitchen has been the most active room in the house in terms of evolutionary use. Dining rooms fell under the remit of the kitchen twenty years ago, being relocated to the front of the house. The various functions of the living room have also accrued over a similar time frame and now hallways, gardens and multimedia are in the orbit of the kitchen.

Five socio-economic forces that might account for these changes include: shortage of time because both men and women work: women’s liberation (if you are in doubt of this look at kitchens in Asia or the Middle East); open plan living with its addiction to light space; less formal social attitudes and behaviours; the widespread adoption of central heating; and changed attitudes about food and cooking.

Stay tuned for more on the evolution of the post-culinary kitchen.

Part of the conversation when we start working with new clients is to explain why a Johnny Grey kitchen isn’t just any old kitchen. Various adjectives (depending on which side of the Atlantic) can be used to describe our kitchens: high-end, custom, bespoke, top-of-the-line, premium, and of course, luxury. Luxury, in turn, comes with its own set of associations. One of our favorite approaches to luxury is “Rough Luxe,” a concept developed by designer Rabih Hage in his London hotel of the same name.

Our version of “Rough Luxe” uses design to hold together a series of very individual pieces of furniture, some of which are antiques, bric a brac and found pieces, combined with the application of principles based on neuroscience – you might call this instinct-based design. “Rough” in this context means a focus on texture, using solid, natural materials and finishes. Here you can see an example of a kitchen we designed for a family of six. They wanted something unostentatious that reflected their love of textures and colour.

The finishes in the cabinetry and furniture we used evoke texture and age. This is an example of how we celebrate wear and enjoyment of tear and embrace irregular and hand made imperfections in the construction of furniture and fittings.

The other component of “Rough Luxe” is of course luxury. Luxury means our bodies are quietly taken care of. In neuroscience terms, the design responds to our hard-wired needs. Elements of this include efficient but hidden ergonomics, long views, natural light and the relaxing effect of seeing nature and keeping in tune with the time of day. We also design to maximize ease of movement, ’soft geometry’ and other body support mechanisms like non-slip surfaces and worktops at the proper height.

Here you can see how we’ve applied some of these principles using freestanding furniture in the center of the kitchen.

The circular shape of the peninsula allows your body to move around without having to make sharp turns or walk at a specific angle to meet a straight line/edge. It also has no sharp corners so does not alert peripheral vision and its link with the brain’s fight and flight mechanism.

Finally, it’s also important that the space reflects the personalities of our clients. The incorporation of clutter and happiness-inducing objects allows one to feel at home. Here you can see how the client has used her own wallpaper and freestanding pieces and put her individual stamp upon the style and taste of the room.