In this newsletter we're talking about Johnny's podcast, and the history and future of the unfitted kitchen concept.
CHATTING ROUND THE KITCHEN TABLE
A podcast is a great platform for telling stories. Making one is also a great way to meet new people and hear all sorts of insider information about their lives. You have space to explore ideas - colourful, unexpected or practical ones. I am building up a portfolio of interviews with artists, thinkers, architects, craftspeople, writers, historians - also foodies, cooks and those helping make our kitchens richer places and our homes beautiful and gemütlich.
My first interview is with Sophie Donelson about her new book Uncommon Kitchens: A Revolutionary Approach to the Most Popular Room in the House.
If you click on this link you can listen to one of the first three podcasts hosted by Jules Carr, long term colleague and current head of design at JG Studios: Unfollow The Rules, Shavings on the Pavement, or Studying and Making.
Here are three earlier podcasts I was hosted on that might also interest you: The Unsociable Kitchen, KBB Special Achievement and The Spoon.
THE BACKSTORY
In 1986 I met the directors of the trend-setting UK company Smallbone and explained my wish to create kitchens in a whole new way.
This was to use pieces of furniture rather than the walls of the room to define the layout. Despite the fact that they were in the fitted kitchen business – this was even the slogan on the side of their delivery vans - Smallbone had the vision to let me bring my idea to the market.
A year later I had created around 50 furniture concepts for Smallbone. The company built carefully crafted prototypes and we installed displays in 12 showrooms. Beautifully printed brochures communicated the concept in glossy style. It was popular with journalists, designers and – crucially – customers, with sales figures to match. However, three years later Smallbone was sold to a conglomerate: the original management team was hollowed out, with the company going into decline and taking a different direction.
The essence of the Unfitted Kitchen did not diminish. Its ideas dispersed and influenced the kitchen industry in a fundamental way. A few years later it formed the core of my book The Art of Kitchen Design (2002). It was the basis for my exploration of behaviour in the kitchen, such as the importance of planning for eye contact for sociability, soft geometry for movement and dedicated work surfaces for organising cooking activity efficiently.
From the Unfitted Collection: the oven and appliance storage cupboard
THE GENESIS OF A NEW COMPANY
The Unfitted Kitchen concept has always been central to my approach, items of furniture forming pretty much all of my projects.
So last year I decided to create a new company specifically to sell stand-alone kitchen furniture. Johnny Grey Studios have now been working behind the scenes for about a year creating designs and prototypes for the launch of our new company. We will shortly be publishing a website and inviting selected dealers and showrooms in the UK, USA, Europe and Australia to stock the furniture. We will also sell the range online. ‘The kitchen you can take with you’ will be one of our messages. It is aimed at clients who want to play an active role in the planning of their own kitchen spaces.
We are thinking hard about sustainability, including ways to simplify installation and enable easy DIY planning.
In a tribute to the 1980s Unfitted Kitchen, we are still able to source English and Europe olive ash and are retaining the emotionally appealing spirit of the original collection. The designs though are fresh and new (see below).
Watch this space for the launch of the new Unfitted website. We are also starting to select kitchen retailers in the UK, USA, Europe, Japan and Australia.
From the Unfitted Collection: the flexible café table
Howard Jones and his wife Jan’s kitchen. A a celebration of the joys of fine furniture, colour and handcrafts.
Given the strangeness of the climate around the world and the growing sense of nature in crisis, we as a company are committed to a reducing our impact on nature.
One way to do this is by encouraging the reuse of kitchen cabinetry. About 7% of UK kitchens are removed each year, often for no reason than that a scheme in more or less perfect condition has been inherited from a previous owner. These kitchens go into landfill.
In recent months a few of the houses in which I installed kitchens in the past have changed hands, leading to the new owners getting in touch with me. They recognise the specialness of their kitchens while themselves favouring a new style and they ask me what to do. It turns out that these kitchens dismantle relatively easily. The sizes and shapes can be successfully reconfigured since they are constructed in modular segments or components. My kitchens are built to last. About half a dozen so far have already been relocated, giving a second life to the unique, sometimes funky and always exciting, cabinetry. This is both an opportunity for a homeowner and a gain for the planet.
