The Frankfurt Kitchen, the original fitted kitchen, was designed in 1926 by Margarete Schütte-Lihotsky. 10,000 of them were installed in Frankfurt am Main. I knew the V & A had one, but when I went to see it a few years ago, of the three people I asked, only one had heard of it and none of them knew where it was. Now the V & A Storehouse in Stratford can display it.

The V & A kitchen is not identical to the one in the diagram: it has solid fuel and electric stoves, not gas, and it has a chair rather than a swivel stool. It was designed to minimize the steps taken by the housewife. On the right-hand side there are drawers for various dry goods such as lentils, sugar, flour. The names are printed on them. They are called Schütten in German – I’ve seen it translated as dispensers. I actually have a couple made of toughened glass which a friend gave me.