The harmonious shapes, flamboyant colors & no-nonsense storage that typify Italian cucinas are cooking up excitement for North American homeowners!
By Elaine Underwood
28 September 2004
Designed like a drum set with everything at arm's reach, Paolo Pininfarina's Acropolis is truly the Ferrari of kitchens.
Berloni's Box kitchen in arancio, just one of 17 vibrant, inspiring shades.
Contemporary
Cooking
Popular images of modern life suggest young professionals dialing for dinner,
two-career households warming up takeout, soccer moms piloting through the drive-through
window, empty nesters simplifying their lives. In such a culture, who would
think twice about the kitchen? But, more than ever, the kitchen is the heart
of the home, serving as the hub of the house, the gateway to the great room,
the star of many a renovation fantasy and the putative symbol of self worth
if you are keeping up with the Joneses.
It’s the same story
in Italy, where the pace of life can also mean less time to cook. But the kitchen
is still very much the heart of the modern Italian home, where everyone wants
to hangout and catch up on the day. So, it should come as no surprise that a
country that gave the world one of the greatest cuisines also contributes more
than its share of innovative kitchen designs. Banish visions of old-world Tuscan
country charm––the Italian kitchen, as interpreted by Snaidero,
Scavolini, Boffi, Berloni, Arclinea and others, features pleasing contemporary
lines, ergonomic attention to detail and wow factor with impact.
Il
Gusto del Bello
“I think that the great talent of Italian designers has something to do
with an attention to beauty and harmony that comes from our past,” says
Raffaella Marriotti, editor-in-chief of kitchens.it, a website sponsored by
the Italian kitchen giant Scavolini and sister-company Ernestomeda that covers
news and trends in the sector. “Our history is made, among other things,
of a constant search for harmonious shapes. Il gusto del bello––the
taste for beauty––is not only confined to the world of art but enters
in everyday life.”
This orientation brings
soothing monochromes, to be sure, but also a daring use of color. It incorporates
thoughtful design (such as Berloni’s innovative undersink drawers with
plumbing cut-out and convenient supply and trash bins), and imaginative elements
in taut right angles or sinuous ovals to create kitchens that work as well with
a contemporary loft or an open great room.
Snaidero's Ola kitchen--an ultra functional ode to curves.
For the traditionalist new to contemporary, this Berloni kitchen cooks in style for just your taste.
This modern loft kitchen in retro green is the ideal contemporary mix of innovation with a nod to great designs of the past.
Be
Bold
For some, Italian kitchen design presents the kind of everyday art that inspires
entire houses. One owner of a Malibu beach house wanted to bring the dazzling
blues and whites of the outdoors in. She was able to recreate Pacific coast
hues with a Snaidero kitchen in dream blue, a highly lacquered periwinkle. The
cabinets were set against white stone floors. “The whole house was done
in blue and white to coordinate with the kitchen,” recalls Lois O’Malley,
Snaidero’s Los Angeles Showroom Manager. Even the felt on the pool table
in the adjacent game room was customized to match the blue in the kitchen. Another
Snaidero client, a recalcitrant rock star, selected a fire-engine red kitchen
from the maker. “It suited his bold personality,” says Anna-Paola
Snaidero, who is Vice President, PR and Advertising for Snaidero USA. Other
clients who gravitate toward bold colors tend to be in the design fields, like
architects, hair stylists and interior designers.
For Americans, attuned to
neutral hardwoods, stainless and natural-stone flooring, color can come as a
bit too much of a surprise. “In reality, I find more color kitchens in
Milan than in Miami,” says Alessia Caramella, manager of the Boffi studio
in Miami, part of the Lumenaire group of companies. “People love the stainless
and they love our white polyester finish.” (Yes, for decades, Boffi has
used a coat of polyester-based finish toimpart a strong, super-glossy touch
that wards off stains and chips.)
Mise
en Place
While innovative use of color may be the most striking aspect of top Italian
lines, the reality is that clever storage is the dream of most kitchen renovators.
Besides Berloni’s undersink drawer system, the company’s Box style,
featured on its website in snazzy orange, puts storage pieces on casters so
you can tuck a cabinet under the table if you need floor space and pull it out
when you need it.
Scavolini has managed to
scale down the pantry to a tidy 12-inch width, and it’s this piece that
is most impressive to visitors at Kasanova Kitchen in New Jersey’s affluent
Bergen County. The pull-out cabinet is seven-feet high and opens to approximately
two-feet in depth, with sturdy, removable chrome shelves inside for storing
dry goods. “It’s the one piece where people say, ‘I have to
have this,’” says Kathleen Campbell, Kasanova’s president.
Another item that tackles the dead corner issue features a cabinet that opens
with inside-mounted bins on the door and pull out shelves inside, instead of
the expected Lazy Susan. “It was on an Oprah special having to
do with people living in small spaces,” adds Campbell.
The
Family that Cooks Together...
Beyond the practical amenities of Italian kitchens, modern life means having
a home that keeps the family cook in the same room as everyone else, the dining
table within sight, the computer in convenience range and the TV close to a
handful of pretzels and a glass of wine. So kitchens have to look like a place
where you’d like to hang out, meaning more refined surfaces and stylish
shapes.
That’s how colorful
kitchens can mirror sofas, why, literally, some Scavolini customers are buying
kitchen units, replacing toe guards with legs and adapting them as entertainment
centers. Pedigree designers lend a hand, too. Paolo Pininfarina, from the famous
Ferrari designing family, makes kitchens for Snaidero. His Acropolis kitchen,
a circular tour de force, can float at one end of a great room, tidily compressing
everything kitchen-related within arms reach, leaving plenty of space in the
room for the rest of your life. Its inspiration: “Paolo is a drum player
and he was thinking about reaching everything just by elongating an arm,”
says Anna-Paola Snaidero. Ferrari collectors have a special penchant toward
this designer’s kitchen
The
Delicacy is in the Details
To complete the picture, Italian kitchen accessory designers put just as much
attention to detail into vent hoods, custom countertops, sinks and more. In
addition to offering space age design, Jetair range hoods come in standard outside
vent models and in versions that recycle cooking odors and expel fresh air to
negate the need for an outdoor pipe. Vertraria, makers of VT2 tempered-crystal
glass countertops and backsplashes, makes colorful, swirling designs that are
impermeable to wayward children with hammers. Plados sinks come in a range of
pastels, primaries and neutrals, so they’ll work with any colorscheme
and they’re treated with an antibacterial agent, Microban®.
Eat-In
or Take-Out
Of course, after finally going through the agony of creating the perfect kitchen,
the last thing any homeowner wants to do is leave it behind. Here’s where
another European trend would come in handy. “In Europe, when they buy
a house, there generally is no installed kitchen or bathroom,” notes Berloni
distributor Scott Dresner. “You buy your own kitchen and when you move,
you take it with you to the next place.” The heart of the home beats in
any location.
Elaine Underwood is a New Jersey-based writer who covers business and design.
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