See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/272019409

Effects of Changing Life Styles and Globalizing

Tendencies on Kitchen Size and Design: Turkey
as a Case
ARTICLE APRIL 2012

READS

24

5 AUTHORS, INCLUDING:
Muteber Erbay

Nilgn Kulolu

Karadeniz Technical University

Karadeniz Technical University

4 PUBLICATIONS 0 CITATIONS

15 PUBLICATIONS 8 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

SEE PROFILE

Sengul Yalcinkaya
Karadeniz Technical University
1 PUBLICATION 0 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE

All in-text references underlined in blue are linked to publications on ResearchGate,

letting you access and read them immediately.

Available from: Nilgn Kulolu

Retrieved on: 16 November 2015

Research Journal of International Studies

ISSN: 1453-212X Issue 23 (2012)
EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2012
http://www.eurojournals.com/international_studies.htm

Effects of Changing Life Styles and Globalizing Tendencies on

Kitchen Size and Design: Turkey as a Case
Muteber Erbay
Assist Proffessor, Karadeniz Technical University
Faculty of Architecture, Trabzon, Turkey
E-mail: merbay@ktu.edu.tr
Nilgun Kuloglu
Assist Proffessor, Karadeniz Technical University
Faculty of Architecture, Trabzon, Turkey
E-mail: melek@ktu.edu.tr
Sengul Oymen Gur
Proffessor, Beykent University
Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Istanbul, Turkey
E-mail: sengul@gur.com
Sengul Yalcinkaya Erol
Assist Proffessor, Karadeniz Technical University
Faculty of Architecture, Trabzon, Turkey
E-mail: sengulyk@yahoo.com
Abstract
This article renders results and interpretations of a study of house area, kitchen area, and
the ratio of kitchen area to overall floor area of houses, in the context of social mass
housing, through a historical comparative analysis of working class housing in Turkey and
Europe in the modern period, for the purpose of determining the impact of globalization on
cultures and eating habits, domestic gender roles, and domestic technology.
Based on the statistical tests one might say that the data drawn from each of the
cases, of Europe and Turkey, do not correlate. Each runs its own course until the 1990s,
whereupon, after the affects of globalization are largely felt, the three variables - house
area, kitchen area, and kitchen floor area as a percentage of total house floor area - seem to
converge and simulate one another (Turkey: 8.7%; Europe: 8.5%). The practiced size for
kitchens in Turkey seems to be around 10.5 sq m and for those in Europe, around 9.5 sq m.
Moreover, a significant preference for multi-purpose living rooms that
accommodate basic kitchen functions emerged in mass housing projects both in Europe and
in Turkey after the 1990s. Turkish and European houses with this type of living room are
almost equal in size, approximately 100 sq m in Turkey and 90sq m in Europe. The
approximate mean area of living rooms in such dwellings is 27sq m, which represents 28%
of the entire floor area of such a home in Turkey. The similar statistics are 38 sq m and
44% for such homes in Europe.

Research Journal of International Studies - Issue 23 (March, 2012)

143

Keywords: Mass housing; kitchen; size; spatial organization; gender roles

1. Introduction
The house remains a non-negligible issue in architecture. It has been an arena of challenges and
disputes since it first began to be designed for anonymous users. Complications and constraints
involved in housing and house patterns led to strident complaints from users starting in the early third
quarter of the 20th century, a situation which prompted extensive research on housing. Nevertheless,
the housing question persists, as do the complaints. Therefore in this study we endeavored to dwell
scientifically upon some concrete issues involved in house design and to discover how consumerist
lifestyles might have affected the use of kitchens, in particular, in order to ascertain and uphold some
fundamentals.
The main goal of the research was to observe changes in kitchen standards since the time when
such were suggested by the Frankfurt kitchen and promulgated by architectural design standards
proffered by such researchers as Mittag and Neufert, from research into practice, in general; to trace
how Turkish traditional kitchens have been transformed due to the effects of Modernization and
globalization throughout modern history and to contrast this tendency with their European
counterparts.
To set the scene for the arguments outlined above, a discussion of culture, eating habits and
gender roles associated with the family and home will be helpful at this point, in order to contextualize
the research itself, by means of elaborating upon the globalizing tendencies which find an expression in
kitchen design.

2. Culture and Eating Habits

Architectural form is a holistic entity composed of function, mass/volume relations, formats, details,
ornamentations, fitments and fixtures which reflect the physical requisites of an immediate geography
and urban context, local values and expectations, societal meanings of existence, and symbols of
identity. Foucault (1959) argued that truth and meaning depend on the historical discursive and
practical means of the production of truth and meaning. Bourdieu (1985) eloquently demonstrated how
religion, politics and economy are involved in shaping the world view of societies and ethnic groups.
He argues convincingly that individuals are domesticated through language and other symbols within a
society so as to form a culture. Hence, culture implies anything produced by the society: religion,
knowledge, tradition, customs, arts, architecture, techniques, as well as eating habits (Minor and
Mowen, 2003).
However, along with historical changes in socio-cultural life, some preferences change, and
societies adopt new measures for evaluation and judgment. Over the past few centuries, especially
during the Industrial Revolution, the installation of industrial plants; the increasing prevalence of
international trade; the moving of populations of workers into towns and the thus newly constituted
working class; the rise of arguments concerning patriarchal values involving the genders with respect
to work and familial affairs; the adoption by many states of mandatory schooling and so on - all have
had an immense affect on the eating habits of populations. Grefe (1994) implicates this state of affairs
in what he refers to as the collapse of the art of cooking.
Today, changing social structures, consumption behaviors and international relations; rapidly
diversifying media; an accelerating tempo of life; congested towns; advanced technologies employed at
work and home; dynamic patterns of business and work; the increased employment of women;
transformations in familial routines, the rising level of education; the tendency toward specialization;
and the demand for quality improving and enriching activities in cultural life; curiosity concerning
other peoples kitchens; and temptation to eat outside the home are among the factors which have had a
tremendous effect on the food consumption models of societies. Naturally, this state of affairs has
resulted in a different view of home kitchens, which traditionally used to be the centre of familial life,
the heart of the house, and the domain of women.
Research Journal of International Studies - Issue 23 (March, 2012)
144

Now, let us look at the kitchen from a historical point of view to see how culture has
transformed it, architecturally speaking, over time.

3. The History of the Kitchen as a Spatial Unit of the House

At one extreme, some practical researchers explain the particular history of kitchens in terms of the
development and proliferation of the mechanisms of electricity, water and gas and the associated
increase in such kitchen devices as ovens, heaters, cupboards, refrigerators, dish-washers, thrashgrinders and a wide range of other electrical appliances (i.e. Aat, 1991).
At the other extreme, some researchers focus on gender issues in understanding household
dynamics, and posit home as a critical site for social, cultural, economic and sexual relations
(Bowley, Gregory and McKie, 1997). Clearly, since Rapoport wrote his seminal and most influential
book, House Form and Culture (1969) which gave rise to innumerable studies, theses, dissertations
and other books and articles, architects and planners have been persuaded that culture and house are
one and the same. Much later, in her 1998 review of feminist geographical work on 'house and home,
the household, and the domestic world', Mona Domosh concluded that 'the home is rich territory
indeed for understanding the social and the spatial (1998: 276). Since then a wide range of
geographical research has focused on the home and domesticity with special emphasis on gender roles
(Burton, 2003; Duncan and Lambert, 2003; Jacobs, 2003; Mallet, 2004; Chapman, 2004; Giles, 2004;
Pink, 2004; Hitchings, 2004; Smith, 2004; Blunt, 2005; Anderson et al., 2003). Especially the location,
organization and sometimes the number of kitchens in homes are sites of embedded values (Pascali,
2006).
For a better understanding of homes and kitchens and the ways these relate to more
comprehensive cultural and political domains, it is useful to trace such architectural changes
historically. All the contradictory and complementary paradigms referred to above are historically
reflected in kitchen designs in the modern age, and have brought about in architecture certain kitchen
types, and in particular, a range of counter layout designs.
3.1. Kitchen Types
Kitchens have basically been of two types in modern times: 1. Working and eating separate, 2.
Working and eating together. Although relatively rare, there has occurred an in-between type in which
a folding or portable table, as for a quick breakfast, is provided in a small working kitchen. In small
social mass housing in which this kitchen type is adopted, the dining room is usually waived. Today a
genuine third type which has been anonymously termed the open kitchen has become popular. In this
type, the kitchen workspace has become a part of the living room. It owes its popularity to the
changing lifestyles of and attitudes towards women. The rising level of education of couples and the
employment of women outside the home have occasioned a rise in the womans social status at home.
Preparing, cooking, serving, eating, cleaning, stacking, storing, and the like are basic kitchen
activities, and these require counters, kitchen sinks, racks, cupboards, and so on. Hence kitchens can
also be classified in terms of counter design (Fairweather, 1977; Thiersch, 1977; Wilson, 1977;
Levene, 1978; Johnson, 2006).
I-Shaped: Basic kitchen activities are gathered on a single counter which runs along one
of the walls. This is a functional solution which requires only about 1.10-1.30m of length,
thereby theoretically reducing the minimum kitchen size to about 2.40 m2.
L-Shaped: This type is generated by the addition of a workbench to the narrow side of the
counter. By contrast with the I-shaped counter, more than one person can work efficiently
in this type.
F-Shaped: When a short workbench or dining table is added perpendicular to the longer
side of the counter of the above type, the arrangement takes on an F shape.
Research Journal of International Studies - Issue 23 (March, 2012)

145

II-Shaped (Galley): This type, designed with two parallel counters, generally found more
application than the former types during the 1970s.
U-Shaped: This type is not much different from the II-shaped, above, except for an extra
counter added to the narrow wall, tying the two parallel counters. This prohibits access to
a balcony.
G-Shaped: This type is created by the addition to the U-form on the side of the kitchen
entrance of a smaller counter, which usually serves as a breakfast table.
Island Kitchen: In any of the above types the cooktop with ventilation hood can be placed
in the middle of the kitchen, forming an island (Levene, 1978).
Excluding the G-shaped and Island kitchen, which fit better in larger houses, five of these
standard plans have proliferated across the globe, with few variations cross-nationally. The
Scandinavian variant, the Finnish kitchen, as described by Saarikangas (2006) is illustrative in this
respect.
Supski (2006) notes how post-war migrant women aspired to acquire one of these kitchens as
part of their acculturation into modern West Australia in the 1950s. These aspirations were echoed by
rural migrant women of the Black Sea Region of Turkey; the small, tidy, all inclusive, easy to cope
with kitchen is the phrase employed by migrants who are eager to be urban (Gr and Yurdseven,
1993; Gr 2000).
Modernist-positivist approaches to the history of kitchens enable us to speak of some standards
related to kitchens.
3.2. Kitchen Types
Modern architecture initiated a new era in kitchen design via the Frankfurt Kitchen (1.9 m x 3.4 m)
introduced in 1929. The modernist proclivity toward rationalizing almost everything related to design
promoted ergonomics. This exercise in ergonomics often meant emphasizing people performing
routine activities involved with kitchen work; rationalizing tasks on the basis of maintaining the ideal
triangular relationship between the sink, the cooking surface and the worktop; removing inefficiencies
in kitchens; and suggesting an idealized path through this workspace. In the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries in Britain Christina Frederick, Clementina Black, Lilian Gilbreth and some others
borrowed the corporate doctrine of Taylorism and advocated it for domestic designs (Llewellyn, 2004:
45). These concepts combined with that of existenzminimum, were taken on and discussed at the CIAM
(Congrs Internationaux dArchiteture Moderne), a meeting on minimum-space dwellings sponsored
by the main proponents of Modern architecture, in Frankfurt, in1929. The result was the famous
Frankfurt kitchen designed by the female architect Grete Lihotzsky (Llewellyn, 2004). It was no more
than an enclosed workspace separated from the living room by a screen. Later it was criticized for
allowing only one person to work in the kitchen space. However, it became a model for a great deal of
20th century mass housing production, especially after the Second World War.
The living room kitchen intended for low-income families was another concept at the time.
This solution allowed the mother to keep an eye on the children while she was preparing meals. They
are again popular today. The rising number of working women might have effected a change in the
culturally approved gender roles at home, especially with regard to the kitchen. Feminist struggles may
have come to be appreciated by the general public and architects, among whom the number of women
is rising. Besides, for low cost housing, uniting the kitchen and the living room saves space and money,
so that the underlying reason may be purely economic. In the research expounded below we
encountered many multi-purpose living rooms which contain the working kitchen, dinner tables,
couches, music, television and cinema sets, and so on. In other words, today kitchens tend to embrace
the life outside their nominal work more and more.
To summarize, since its first conception as an independent unit of the house, the kitchen has
undergone much specialization and change. At present, a review of criteria in kitchen designs in mass
housing projects is an important issue for architects and designers. What is the right size of the
Research Journal of International Studies - Issue 23 (March, 2012)
146

standard kitchen today for Turkish mass housing design? What is the frequency of multi-purpose
living rooms? Can one speak of any typology applicable for them? Can they be desirable for the entire
population? Is the preference for them an indication of Westernization? In other words, does the
preference vary between the globalized West and the East, i.e. Turkey?
The following research into practice aimed at disclosing some standards with respect to the
practiced size of contemporary kitchens in low-income housing for Turkey. Therefore a historical
analysis is run for Turkey via stratified sampling and a stratified pilot sample from Europe is used for
comparison in order to determine similarities and differences so as to make some generalizations if the
results so permitted.

4. Research Design
The major goal of this study was to suggest some measurable qualities employable in future kitchen
designs for designers and developers. A latent goal of our research was to shed light on the impact of
social-cultural changes such as modernization and globalization on physical entities like domestic
spaces - kitchens.
As historical differential points we considered the 1930-1950 era suitable to begin tracing the
effects of International Style (Modern principles, Frankfurt Kitchen and the like) in mass housing
projects for both Turkey and Europe. Complaints began to accumulate around the 1960s; therefore we
designated the second era to be 1951-1970s, which we hypothesized as years in which the need for
more space came to be understood. Kitchens falling into the era of 1971-1990s could have been even
more generously sized due to general increases in wealth, innovations in electrical appliances
worldwide, and increased understanding of the storage needs of urbanizing populations in Turkey due
to foodstuffs being provided by villages in bulk. Based on design experience we hypothesized that after
the 1990s multi-purpose kitchen solutions could have started popping up worldwide and, where this
was not the case, the kitchen size might have begun to decrease due to global cultural tendencies: less
cooking at home, corporate eating, abundant fast food shops, eating out as part of dating, celebrations,
a taste for the exotic, and so on.
In the Environment-Behavior Course (Spring 2010, Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon,
Turkey), in order to test our hypothesis we asked our students to randomly select two examples from
Turkish traditional houses, and one house from each range, 1930-1950, 1951-1970, 1971-1990, and
1991-today, respectively, among mass housing examples from Turkey and elsewhere in Europe. We
collected these selections and eliminated recurring examples. Finally we had about 60 traditional
houses evenly distributed by geographical regions of Turkey (Figures 1, 2) and about 30 from each
range for Turkey and Europe separately.
Figure 1: Traditional kitchens were either connected to the main open court or to back gardens to provide
more space for kitchen chores, in Turkey

Research Journal of International Studies - Issue 23 (March, 2012)

147

Figure 2: In the traditional Turkish houses wall furnaces in the kitchens provided for cooking different dishes
at the same time

Since randomization of European Modern mass housing designs would have been an
impossible task to carry out we investigated the Berlin Houses designed by Bruno Taut, employed in
approximately 10 000 houses in Germany, as an exemplary (for these houses see Brenne, 2008). We
formed teams and measured the area of house and kitchen and calculated floor ratios, kitchens to
houses. To be able to discuss the results more scientifically we ran some statistics (Table 1-2).
Table 1:

Distribution of data and the mean values for variables-Turkey

Kitchen Type

Independent
Kitchens

Multi-purpose
Living Rooms

Table 2:

Time span

Location

Distribution

Traditional (turn
of the century or
earlier)
1930-1950

Turkey

1951-1970

Turkey

1971-1990

Turkey

1991-Today

Turkey

Istanbul, Trabzon, Karabk,

Kayseri, Antalya, Nevehir,
Mula, Edirne, Erzurum, Antakya
Kayseri, Ankara, stanbul, zmir
Ankara, Konya, orum, Istanbul,
zmir, Diyarbakr,
stanbul, Edirne, Ankara, zmir,
Mersin, Kocaeli
Ankara, Istanbul

1991-Today

Turkey

Ankara, stanbul

Turkey

House
Area.

Kitchen
Area.

Kitchen/
House

215,13

20,57

0,09

95,02

7,44

0,08

113,74

8,00

0,07

125,23

10,84

0,08

126,25

10,70

0,08

101,32

27,62

0,28

Distribution of data and the mean values for variables-Europe

Kitchen Type

Pilot Survey

Multi-purpose
Living Rooms

Time span

Location

Distribution

House
Area.

Kitchen
Area.

Kitchen/
House

All of Taut's
Houses

Europe

Germany

77,76

10,95

0,15

1930-1950

Europe

66,50

7,48

0,11

1951-1970

Europe

72,36

7,84

0,11

1971-1990

Europe

96,48

9,55

0,10

1991-Today

Europe

113,34

9,55

0,08

1991-Today

Europe

89,11

38,16

0,44

Germany, Hungary, Finland, England,

Italy, Belgium, Holland, Denmark
Germany, Yugoslavia, Finland, Sweden,
Holland, Greece, England, Denmark,
France, Switzerland
France, Austria, England, Germany,
Denmark, Italy
Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Spain,
Denmark, Finland, Holland, Italy
England, Spain, Switzerland, Holland,
Slovenia, Italy

Research Journal of International Studies - Issue 23 (March, 2012)

148

4. Statistical Analyses
The SPSS 15.0 statistical package program was used in the analysis of the data. First of all, whether the
observations displayed a normal frequency was analyzed by Skewness and Kurtosis co-efficient. The
frequency of data is assumed to be normal when the value range falls between +2 and -2. For a normal
curve, parametric tests for independent groups, such as the Independent Samples Test and ANOVA,
are applied. Additionally, contingent with variance homogeneity, Tukey and Tamhane, among the Post
Hoc Multiple Comparisons tests, are preferred. For those observations which do not show normal
frequency, a nonparametric test such as the Kruskal Wallis H and Mann-Whitney Test is employed
instead. The significance level is determined to be 0.05 in all these tests.
For Turkish traditional houses from the turn of the century and those built between 1930 and
the 1950s, data obtained for house area and kitchen area and the ratio of kitchen to house area display
normal frequencies, allowing the use of the Independent Samples Test, the results of which are found
below (Table 3).
Table 3:

House size and ratio of kitchen to house area for Turkey before and after the 1930s

Turkey
House area
Kitchen area
/ House area

Group
Before 1930s
1930-1950
Before 1930s
1930-1950
1930-1950

N
21
20
21
20
20

Mean
215,1295
95,0175
,0963
,0880
,0880

Std dev.
106,90367
37,22397
,03900
,03965
,03965

df

4,849

24,990

,000

,679

39

,501

Based on the results shown in Table 3, one can soundly argue that the difference between the
size of houses before and after 1930s is statistically significant for the Turkish sample (p=,000, p
<0,05). Traditional houses show a large mean area at 215 sq m. After the 1930s Modernization affected
architecture through literature and other media, and the arithmetic mean of the social mass housing
shows an average of 95sq m. However the ratio of kitchen to house area remains quite steady (p=,501,
0,05< p).
Data related to kitchens in the same periods does not display a normal frequency, and therefore
the Mann-Whitney U-non parametric test is preferred here (Table 4). Table 4 demonstrates that there is
a significant difference between the Turkish kitchen before and after the 1930s (p=,000, p <0,05). The
mean rank value shows that traditional kitchens were much larger than those in the modern period.
Table 4:

Mann-Whitney Test results contrasting kitchen sizes before and after the 1930s in the Turkish
sample

Turkey
Kitchen area

Group
Before 1930s
1930-1950

N
21
20

Mean Rank
29,79
11,78

P
0,000

To contrast traditional European houses with their Modern counterparts was impossible by
definition. Therefore in this study we concentrated on social houses designed by Bruno Taut before the
Frankfurt Kitchen became a guiding principle, in order to make a reasonable comparison of before and
after. The area data for these and the houses built after the 1930s showed a normal frequency curve,
and therefore the Independent Samples Test was chosen for all three parameters (Table 5).
Table 5:
Europe
House area

House and kitchen sizes and the ratio of kitchens to houses for the European pilot
samples before and after the 1930s.
Group
Before 1930s
1930-1950

N
17
20

Mean
77,7594
66,5015

Std dev.
19,50192
19,70799

Research Journal of International Studies - Issue 23 (March, 2012)

Df

1,740

35

,091

149

Table 5:

House and kitchen sizes and the ratio of kitchens to houses for the European pilot samples before
and after the 1930s. - continued

Kitchen area
Kitchen area /
House area

Before 1930s
1930-1950
Before 1930s
1930-1950

17
20
17
20

10,9529
7,4760
,1513
,1187

2,93659
1,98701
,06146
,03805

4,273

35

,000

1,971

35

,057

Table 5 shows that the arithmetic mean of kitchen area before 1930s is 10,95 sq m, but as low
as 7,48 sq m between 1930-1950 and apart from a sharp decrease in kitchen area before and after the
1930s (p=,000, p <0,05), the difference between the social houses built before and after the 1930s in
Europe (Germany as the case) is insignificant (p=,091, 0,05<p) and so is the kitchen to house area ratio
(p=,057, 0,05<p).
According to Table 6 below, in the Turkish sample, house area and the ratio of kitchen to house
area do not display a significant difference after 1930s (p=,835; p=,604, p>0,05), whereas Modern
kitchen sizes before and after the 1970s are significantly different (p=,041, p<0,05). After the 1970s
kitchens begin to increase in size.
Table 6:

One-Way ANOVA results related to house area, kitchen area, and the ratio of kitchen to house area
in Turkey since the 1930s

Data related to
House area

Kitchen area

Kitchen area /
House area

Years
1930-1950
1951-1970
1971-1990
1991-Today
1930-1950
1951-1970
1971-1990
1991-Today
1930-1950
1951-1970
1971-1990
1991-Today

N
19
20
22
22
19
20
22
22
19
20
22
22

A. Mean
98,0542
113,7375
125,2277
126,2491
7,3937
7,9980
10,8423
10,7014
,0808
,0740
,0875
,0871

Std dev.
35,60793
34,78621
40,74740
32,01499
,40401
,56422
,80878
,52412
,02368
,02364
,02194
,01853

Decision

,835

No significant difference

,041

Significant difference between

1930-1970 and 1971-Today
(Tamhane test result)

,604

No significant difference

According to Table 7 below, four eras display significant differences in terms of house area
(p=,000, p<0,05) in Europe. Mean Rank indicates that houses built after 1991 have the highest floor
area; whereas those houses built between the years of 1930-1950 have the smallest floor area.
However, the differences observed in kitchen size are not significant (p=,336, p>0,05). Nevertheless, a
one-way ANOVA test of the ratio of kitchen to house area in Europe since the 1930s demonstrates that
there is a significant difference between houses built before the 1970s and those built after the 1990s
(p=,003, p<0,05); that is, the means of the kitchen to house area ratio between 1930-1950 and19511970 are higher than the mean of the kitchen to house area ratio after the 1990s (Table 8). Simply put,
the ratio of the area of independent kitchen to house area is currently decreasing.
Table 7:

Kruskal Wallis H test results related to house and kitchen area in Europe since the 1930s

Data related to
House area

Years
1930-1950
1951-1970
1971-1990
1991-Today

N
20
22
20
20

Mean Rank
26,05
31,07
47,98
61,95

Research Journal of International Studies - Issue 23 (March, 2012)

p
,000

150

Table 7:

Kruskal Wallis H test results related to house and kitchen area in Europe since the 1930s - continued
1930-1950
1951-1970
1971-1990
1991-Today

Kitchen area

Table 8:

20
22
20
20

35,50
38,14
46,05
46,65

,336

OneWay ANOVA Test results concerning the ratio of kitchen to house area in the European
sample since the 1930s

Data related to
Kitchen area /
House area

Years
1930-1950
1951-1970
1971-1990
1991-Today

N
20
22
20
20

Mean
,1187
,1101
,1009
,0849

Std dev.
,03805
,02288
,02652
,02593

Decision

,003

Significant difference between

the years before 1970 and after
1990s (Tamhane Test Result)

The above tables focused on the differences by era in the Turkish and European samples
separately. The differences between Turkey and Europe are also studied in terms of the sizes of house
area, kitchen area, and the kitchen to house area ratio. A two-way ANOVA showed differences in
house area, kitchen area and kitchen to house area ratios (p=,000; p=,000, p=,001, p<0,05) by era and
location (Table 9
Table 9:

House and kitchen area and the ratio of kitchen to house area since the 1930s: a comparison between
the Turkish and European sample by ANOVA

Source
group * year

Dependent Variable
House area
Kitchen area
Kitchen area / House area

Type III Sum of Squares

94884,995
630,632
,020

df
4
4
4

Mean Square
23721,249
157,658
,005

F
10,909
5,554
5,036

Sig.
,000
,000
,001

Figure 3a: Differences in house area between Turkey and Europe from the 1930s on (only Tauts houses are
included as a pilot group for pre-modern examples for Europe)
Estimated Marginal Means of House Area
group
Turkey
Europe

Estimated Marginal Means

200,00

150,00

100,00

before
1930s

19301950

19511970

19711990

1991today

year

Research Journal of International Studies - Issue 23 (March, 2012)

151

Figure 3b:

Differences in kitchen area between Turkey and Europe from the 1930s on (only Tauts
houses are included as a pilot group for pre-modern examples for Europe)
Estimated Marginal Means of Kitchen Area
group

21,00

Turkey

Estimated Marginal Means

Europe
18,00

15,00

12,00

9,00

6,00
before
1930s

19301950

19511970

19711990

1991today

year

Figure 3c: Differences in kitchen to house area ratios between Turkey and Europe from the 1930s on (only
Tauts houses are included as a pilot group for pre-modern examples for Europe)
Estimated Marginal Means of Kitchen to House Ratios
group

0,16

Turkey

Estimated Marginal Means

Europe

0,14

0,12

0,10

0,08

before
1930s

1930-1950 1951-1970 1971-1990 1991-today

year

When the data related to houses with multi-purpose living rooms are analyzed and Turkey and
Europe are contrasted in this respect via an Independent Samples Test it is observed that in terms of
area of houses, no significant difference exists between Turkey and Europe (p=,181, p>0,05).
However, when the area of the multi-purpose living rooms, and their area expressed as a
percentage of the total house area are compared, the size of the multi-purpose living room is
significantly higher in Europe, and consequently the ratio of multi-purpose living room area to the
general house floor area is also significantly higher (p=,002; p=,000, p<0,05) (Table 10).
Table 10: Comparison of houses designed with multi-purpose living rooms in Turkey and Europe with respect
to house size, living room size and the ratio of living room to total house area.
Data related to Multipurpose Living Room

Group

Mean

Std dev.

House area

Turkey
Europe

24

101,3171

26,79144

30

89,1080

37,03317

Research Journal of International Studies - Issue 23 (March, 2012)

df

1,355

52

,181

152

Table 10: Comparison of houses designed with multi-purpose living rooms in Turkey and Europe with respect
to house size, living room size and the ratio of living room to total house area. - continued
multi-purpose living room area
multi-purpose living room /
house

Turkey
Europe
Turkey
Europe

24
30

27,6221
38,1637

6,26775
15,56419

-3,383

39,883

,002

24
30

,2829
,4414

,07456
,09326

-6,770

52

,000

5. Interpretations
The analyses show that the area of social houses has constantly increased since the 1930s in both
Turkey and Europe. However the floor area of houses in Turkey runs ahead of that of the European
houses in all periods. The traditional Turkish houses randomly investigated in this research ranged
between 73.89 sq m (the wooden row houses of Istanbul) to the 450 sq m houses of Safranbolu (the
earliest Ottoman setting near Sinop) with an average of 215 sq m. During the early Republic of Turkey
Westernization, a political synonym for Modernization helped increase the flow of Western Positivist
culture into Turkey. Newspapers published the results of housing designs and projects. The conception
of traditional houses as integrating social entity - center sofa - was greatly affected by the segregating
western house types predicated upon the corridor system (Gr, 2000). Understandings of kitchens were
radically influenced by the Athens suggestions, such that they suddenly dropped from an average of
20.5 sq m in traditional houses to 7.5 sq m around the 1930s in urban mass housing, then rising slightly
to 8.0 sq m until the 1970s. By then the complaints of Turkish users, although not communicated via
the media, had turned into a growing cry because of the insufficiency of the kitchen area for traditional
cooking, which still persists in many homes in Turkey. Around the 1980s the kitchen gained its due
place in homes, 10.84 sq m on the average, a figure based more on common sense, and our study
indicates that the size has stabilized since then, at 10.70 sq m on average.
Although mass housing floor areas display a tendency to increase, statistical tests demonstrate
that this increase is not statistically important, from 95sq m in the 1930s to 126sq m today. Hence, the
differences observed in the ratio of kitchen floor area to house floor area have not been much affected.
Naturally the situation is different in apartments for the higher social status - increases skyrocketed in
the latter, especially in Istanbul - but contemplation of this phenomenon is beyond the range of this
study.
In Europe, for reasons cited above, instead of traditional houses a short period preceding the
Frankfurt Kitchen was selected for investigation. Among the 10.000 houses built by Bruno Taut for
workers before the 1930s a randomly selected group which illustrated his major types was investigated.
The research revealed that the most common kitchen area designed by Taut (approximately 11 sq m)
was also replaced by a smaller kitchen in Europe (approximately 7.5 sq m) after the 1930s. House floor
area (66.5, 72.4; 96.5; 113.3) incrementally but steadily rose in Europe, as well. As for kitchens,
kitchen floor area (7.5; 7.8; 9.5; 9.5) steadily grew until the 1980s but stabilized since then. Hence the
ratio of kitchen to house area was not significantly affected. Kitchen floor area achieved its highest
value between the years of 1971-1990 both in Turkey and Europe. However, the percentage of kitchen
area has ebbed from 10% to 8.5% in European mass housing after 1990s, probably indicating a desire
for kitchens not to grow anymore. In Turkish mass housing these numbers are 8.8% and 8.8%
consecutively indicating stabilization.
In terms of a general comparison of the two locations, one might say, based on the statistical
tests that the data drawn from both cases do not correlate. Each of the data sets runs its own specific
course until the 1990s. However, after the affects of globalization are largely felt in both the contexts,
the three variables, house size, kitchen size, and the ratio of kitchen area to total house floor area seem
to converge and simulate one another (Turkey: 8.7%; Europe: 8.5%). The practiced size for kitchens
for Turkish low-income housing seems to be around 10.5sq m and for Europe around 9.5 sq m.
Research Journal of International Studies - Issue 23 (March, 2012)

153

Also, rather than independent kitchens assumed to be dominated by women in both locations,
we have observed multi-purpose living rooms at a rather high frequency: 70% in Europe and 25% in
Turkey. The Turkish and European houses with this type of living room are almost equal in size,
approximately 100 sq m in Turkey and 90 sq m in Europe. The approximate mean area of such living
areas is 27 sq m, and they comprise 28% of total floor area in the Turkish sample. These numbers are
38 sq m, and 44% for Europe. From these values one might speculate that these rooms are used mainly
for kitchen activities in Turkey, where users still opt for a separate room for entertaining guests, but are
used mainly for living room activities in Europe. We have compiled the basic types of multi-purpose
living rooms depicted in this survey in Figure 4 below.
As for changing attitudes towards women, the tendency in architecture towards multi-purpose
living rooms does straightforwardly reflect that kitchens are to be shared by all members of the family.
However, to what extent kitchen and domestic chores are split among family members cannot be
deduced from the physical designs, although we are very much aware that social values and
architecture are interdependent. One reason for doubt is that many times in the history of humankind
architecture has run ahead of its time. Nevertheless, when it has been too much ahead of its time
societal demand has frequently been low. A 70% use rate for Europe after 1990s is a high value, which
leads us to believe that it certainly reflects a social and familial demand as well. At least, as a group of
female researchers we will be inclined to believe this until a great deal of social scientific research
based on observations and questionnaires has been done to double-check our results.
Figure 4: Main Multi-purpose Living Room Types Introduced After 1990s- (a study by Sengul Oymen Gur)

Research Journal of International Studies - Issue 23 (March, 2012)

154

References
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]
[18]
[19]
[20]
[21]
[22]
[23]
[24]
[25]
[26]

Aat, N. (1991). Konut Mutfa Tasarm(Housing Kitchen Design). naat Dergisi

(Engineering Journal), 2, stanbul, pp. 28-38.
Anderson, K., Domosh, M., Pile, S. and Thrift, N., Editors (2003). Handbook Of Cultural
Geography. London: Sage.
Bourdieu, P. (1985). The Genesis Of The Concept Of Habitus And Of Field. Sociocriticism,
2, pp. 11-24.
Blunt, A. (2005). Cultural Geography: Cultural Geographies Of Home. Progress In Human
Geography, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 505-515.
Bowley, S. Gregory, S. And Mckie, L. (1997). Doing Home: Patriarchy, Caring And Space.
Womens Studies International Forum, 20, No. 3, pp. 343-350.
Brenne, W. (2008). Bruno Taut: Master Of Colourful Architecture In Berlin. Berlin:
Verlagshaus Braun.
Burton, A. (2003). Dwelling In The Archive: Women Writing House, Home And History In
Late Colonial India. Oxford:Oxford University Press.
Chapman, T. (2004). Gender And Domestic Life: Changing Practices In Families And
Households. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Domosh, M. (1998). Geography And Gender: Home, Again?. Progress In Human
Geography, 22, Pp: 276-82.
Duncan, J.S. and Lambert, D. (2003). Landscapes Of Home. In Duncan, J.S., Johnson, N.C.
And Schein,R.H., Editors, A Companion To Cultural Geography, Oxford: Blackwell, pp: 382403.
Foucault, M. (1959). Archaeology Of Knowledge. Translated by A. M. Sheridan Smith,
London: Routledge, 2002-Originally Paris: Gallimard, 1969.
Giles, J. (2004). The Parlour And The Suburb: Domestic Identities, Class, Femininity And
Modernity. Oxford: Berg.
Grefe, C. (1994). Hamburger ai (Hamburgers Age). Translated by Ogn Duman, letiim,
stanbul, pp: 21.
Gr, . (2000). House Culture. Yem, stanbul.
Gr, . ., Yurdseven, C. (1993). A Poe In The Eastern Black Sea Region, Quality Housing
Research For The Eastern Black Sea Region. Dpt.91.112.002.2, Ktu. Dept. Of Architecture,
Vol. V, pp:181-279.
Hitchings, R. (2004). At Home With Someone Nonhuman. Home Cultures 1, pp: 169-86.
Jacobs, J.M. (2003). Editorial: Home Rules. Transactions Of The Institute Of Bitish
Geographers, Ns 28, pp: 259-63.
Johnson, L. C. (2006). Browsing The Modern Kitchen-A Feast Of Gender, Place And Culture
(Part 1). Gender, Place And Culture, Vol.13, No.2, pp: 123-132.
Levene, A. (1978). Improving Your Kitchen. Wakefield, Wesy Yorkshire: Ep Publishing.
Llewellyn, M, (2004). Designed By Women And Designing Women: Gender Planning And
The Geographies Of The Kitchen. Cultural Geographies, Vol. 11, No.42, pp: 42-60.
Minor, S M. and Mowen, C J. (2003). Consumer Behavior. Prince Hall, New York, pp: 263.
Pascali, L. (2006). Two Stoves, Two Refrigerators, Due Cucine: The Italian Immigrant Home
With Two Kitchen. Gender, Place & Culture, Vol.13, No. 6, pp: 685- 695.
Pink, S. (2004). Home Truths Gender Domestic Objects And Everyday Life. Oxford: Berg.
Rapoport, A. (1969). House Form And Culture. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs.
M. Roberts, (1991) Living In A Man-Made World: Gender Assumptions In Modern Housing
Design. London, Routledge.
Saarikangas, K. (2006). Displays Of The Everyday. Relations Between Gender And The
Visibilityof Domestic Work In The Modern Finnish Kitchen From The 1930s To The 1950s.
Gender, Place And Culture, Vol.13, No.1, pp. 57-68.

Research Journal of International Studies - Issue 23 (March, 2012)

155

[27]
[28]
[29]
[30]

Smith, Sj. (2004). Living Room. Urban Geography 25, pp: 89-91.
Supski, S. (2006) It Was Another Skin: The Kitchen As Home For Australian Post-War
Immigrant Women. Gender, Place And Culture, 13(1), Pp. 2937.
Thiersch, H R. (1977). Die Wahl Des Richtigen Grundrisses, Planen Wohnen. Bauverlag
Gmbh, Berlin.
Wilson, F. (1977). Graphic Guide To Interior Design. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York.

Research Journal of International Studies - Issue 23 (March, 2012)

156