Fiamberti Rolly Kitchen Designs
19 June 2009
“Green Apples”
I know, I know. I write about these modern European kitchens a lot, which, when you consider the fact that I’m an American cabinetmaker who still dreams sometimes of a cabinetmaking business to end all cabinetmaking businesses, must be a bit strange. But what blows my mind about European kitchen designers is the fact that they have approached a kitchen as a blank slate, and in so doing, have done things we have not yet approached in this country.
I have seen any number of truly wonderful American-made kitchens as I’ve made my way through cyberspace looking for new things to write about, but the one thing they all seem to have in common is a large space. And without in any way putting down the amount of innovation I have seen in some of these kitchens, it is still a fact that a large space lends itself to wonderful innovations that are never going to work in a small kitchen. I have seen, to take just one example, any number of truly innovative hood enclosures (large as they are, no other word really describes them—well, maybe hood barn!) but because of the space they occupy, you cannot use them in a small kitchen. Islands are another concept that seems forever reserved for large kitchens. Unless… unless… How does one make it work, this island, if it is to be for a small kitchen? And therein lays a blog, because these people have done just that.
The Rolly rounded kitchen by Fiamberti is a kitchen design in several permutations, as is typical of Italian kitchen designers, and all of them have a wonderful movement throughout that brings vitality to that worn, worn concept of sink, stove, oven, storage space that is the sine qua non of any kitchen design. But how does one design a kitchen that has all of these things—and has them in an efficient work triangle, as indeed it must—and still, somehow, do something different? It’s easy for me to say, of course, because I’m simply observing the work of others, but one of the elements here seems to be simply going with the flow. Really, the element with the highest degree of changeability about it is the cabinetry, but you cannot change the shape of things unless you shape a change in things like cabinets which can be, and often are, so innervatingly pedestrian.
Enter Fiamberti Kitchen Furniture. Actually, the company name may have done much to shape their thinking in regards to kitchen cabinetry, because if you think of it as furniture, not cabinets, a fluidity of design occurs to one that might not otherwise have existed.
The other part of the equation, apart from a creativity that cannot be ignored or minimized, is the fluidity of the material itself. Lots and lots of the cabinetry now being manufactured in this country is really just Melamine, which is nothing more than coated particleboard. But if you are to use an entirely artificial product for a cabinet, why not go that one better and actually shape that material into something else altogether, which is what these people have done with Medium Density Fiberboard and a lot of imagination.
To return to our question on islands, you might be able to do quite a bit with the concept if, instead of an island, you made it a peninsula, which they have done here in several permutations. You can also make an island that is the kitchen and, in so doing, open up a small space into a new world pretty much because the efficiency of that small space, when wrapped into an island, brings with it a utility of design and purpose that is just about impossible to conceive of in any other shape when one’s space is so limited. Are there still kitchens that small? Buddy, let me show you mine! The color doesn’t suit me, but the green peninsular kitchen we’ve shown here would neatly drop into the space we have available for it and completely revolutionize that space. Who knows? Maybe God made the little green opus!
Joseph
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One Response to “Fiamberti Rolly Kitchen Designs”
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:54 AM
This is a copy of the Artika kitchen from Pedini (http://www.pediniusa.com/artika_12.html) that has been arround for more then 10 years…