Pedini Modern Italian Kitchen Designs
2 March 2010
“How Great Thou Art”
I’m listening to a Mozart piano sonata as I write these lines, which is an excellent choice for this type of blog because it deals with kitchen designs, namely designs of the Pedini company and that, in turn, is really variations on a theme, one of Mozart’s strongest suits. I’ve written before about my amazement at those who can simply write down a musical theme and then crank out variation after variation on that theme, to a point where you have every confidence that the person doing the variations stopped not because he’d run out of ideas, but because he’d run out of paper!
Speaking about Italian kitchen designers, though, as I often am, that illustration has always struck me as particularly apt, simply because of both the breadth and depth of their design output. With Pedini, as it is with so many of the Italians, there are a large number of basic kitchen designs, and then a fair number of variations on each of the designs they bring forth.
The other terrific thing about Pedini is that their kitchen designs are not, I repeat not, confined only to those living in Europe. They now have any number of outlets in the USA, which makes their wares all the more attractive. It gives one a chance to rethink a number of things. If you’re one of those who has shied away from all things European for fear of import woes, you may wish to rethink that position. And, if you should choose a kitchen like some of these we’ve featured here, it would give you a chance to rethink, as well, your concept of what a kitchen should be.
One of the things I find particularly interesting about kitchen design these days is the dichotomy now going on. On the one hand, because they are becoming more of a family gathering place, they are getting a lot more use, but as kitchens, in the old sense, they are getting very little use! People bring home take-out or frozen dinners of one type or another. Truthfully, the most used appliances in a lot of kitchens these days are the coffee pot and the microwave! Even so, people are beginning to consider the kitchen the heart of the home. But it’s a kitchen that is not your mama’s kitchen anymore-nor my mama’s kitchen.
The kitchen in the Montana home where I grew up was bare bones, because it was in a house that was built in the 1880s. The stove was free standing, and we had one counter with two small cupboards on either side of a window. Kitty corner to this was a double sink my father installed in a Formica countertop he made himself. That kitchen was used only for cooking, because it was not possible to do anything else in that room. But this was in the 1950s, and my father insisted on the family getting together for dinner every night, where we discussed what we did in school, events of the day, and sometimes, because he was a voracious reader, whatever history book my father may have been reading at the time.
Well, time marched on, and society went in a different direction. Nowadays kids wander about with every electronic device known to man, and families, in consequence, have fragmented. With all the evils of unrestricted use of the Internet by children, though, more and more people are insisting that computers be used only in the kitchen, which has led, in turn, to the family gathering there. But it means that the kitchen as gathering place has become more important than the kitchen as cooking place, and when space is limited, it means that there may not be as much room for other furniture in a room that was originally designed to be used as an “old style” kitchen only.
And that brings us back to Pedini with their propensity for marvelous kitchen designs and variations on a theme. They’ve been at it over half a century now, and they’re still standing tall because of both the purity and ingenuity of their designs. Their mission is nothing less than adapting their kitchens to the lifestyle of their clients while designing innovative concepts for every nook and cranny, the whole of which has a compactness that allows it to easily reside at one end of a Great Room that would be so much more than an oversized family room. It would be where family gathers, and nothing can be greater than that.
Joseph
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2 Responses to “Pedini Modern Italian Kitchen Designs”
March 2nd, 2010 at 3:18 PM
Great post – thank you! The US web site is http://www.pediniusa.com
March 3rd, 2010 at 9:58 PM
So fabulous!! Love love these unique and beautifully designed kitchens by Pedini!!
Karena
Art by Karena