Kitchenification. A Change of Surfaces in the Homes of DK

Abstract

This article, based on a multi-temporal fieldwork, shows how replacement of domestic surfaces interferes with the way people interact and how they imagine homes as well as relations beyond the home. Advertisements from estate agents, catalogues from furniture companies such as IKEA, home renovation shows on TV, SoMe-posts, and house magazines indicate that replacements have become a trend inside Danish homes. This movement towards replacements and sweeping renovations influences sustainability agendas, property value, the capability of remembrance, the social experience of time and the relatedness to the things.

KEYWORDS : :

• home
• Denmark
• renovation
• replacement
• oblivion
• surface
• clutter
• space
• things
• anthropology

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The material stems from fieldworks conducted in 1996, 2002 and 2006. The fieldwork conducted some years ago is used in order to zoom in on the use and understanding of things and spaces in the Danish homes that I have visited as compared to tendencies of today. Some of the topics are also discussed in the essay Glaspest (Raahauge 2023).

2 Poul Gernes (1925-1996) is a Danish artist, Arne Jacobsen (1902-1971) is a Danish modernist architect.

3 As suggested here, a discussion of the intensity of things might be unfolded by relating it to hau, the Maori notion for the spirit of the thing, as described by Marcel Mauss in his seminal work The Gift (1924-4 (Mauss 1980)). Mauss considered exchange of gifts to be the engine of social life; the exchange circles between Polynesian chiefs were important for this understanding. As precious gifts passed in specific exchange circles from chief to chief with a delay of many years before they could be passed on, these gifts got more and more precious; their hau became more intense for each exchange.

4 In Warped Space (2003), Anthony Vidler investigates the relations between anxiety and architecture in the 20^th century on a more general level (Vidler 1992). However, there is a connection from this material to his concern with alienation, displacement, neurosis, agoraphobia, claustrophobia and other such conditions, and with the interrelations between architecture and the rise and transformation of these specific expressions of anxiety.

5 In the article ‘Chronic Whiteness’, Mark Wigley (2020) writes about whiteness as an aspect of the hygienic program of the modernist architects: “Le Corbusier first talked about the need for a ‘law of whitening’ (loi du blanchiment) in an early 1923 interview that presented it as a cleansing moral act to expunge decorative art in favor of a ‘purity’ of body, eye, and brain: This is a necessity both moral and material. It is necessary to establish the law of whitening. This cleanliness makes one see the objects in their sincere truth: hence in perfect purity. Remember the term: it defines a whole discipline. It implies a certain nudity. These trifles, these small pieces of furniture, these futilities of decorative art, are intrusive and indiscreet (Le Corbusier in ‘L’Exposition des arts techniques de 1925’, Le Bulletin de la vie artistique, February 1, 1923, 64.).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a series of grants over the years: 1996 The Ethnological Research Centre Kimming; 1999–2000 The Independent Research Fund Denmark (The Royal Academy’s Architect School, Center for Interdisciplinary Urban Studies); 2000-2005 The Independent Research Fund Denmark (Ph.D.-project under the Urban Ecological Welfare Research, Aalborg University and the Danish Building Research Institute); 2005-2006 RealDania Research (Centre for Housing and Welfare, the University of Copenhagen); 2007-12 The Independent Research Fund Denmark (On the limits of reason The Department of Anthropology, the University of Copenhagen).

Notes on contributors

Kirsten Marie Raahauge

KIRSTEN MARIE RAAHAUGE, ANTHROPOLOGIST, PHD, IS AN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AT THE ROYAL DANISH ACADEMY, INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN. RAAHAUGE IS HEAD OF CENTER FOR INTERIOR STUDIES. 2020-, SHE HEADED THE RESEARCH PROJECT SPACES OF DANISH WELFARE 2017-22. HER FIELD OF RESEARCH IS SPATIAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND HER FIELDWORK IN DENMARK EXPLORES HOMES, NEIGHBORHOODS, URBANITY, SQUARES, LANDSCAPES, THE OUTSKIRTS, AND HAUNTED HOUSES. HER ARCHIVAL STUDIES OF THE INCAS INVESTIGATE SPACE PERCEPTIONS. THESE YEARS, RAAHAUGE STUDIES THE ETHNOGRAPHIC MODEL AS A SPATIO-CULTURAL PHENOMENON, AS A PART OF THE RESEARCH PROJECT THE POWER OF MODELLING, SITUATED AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM IN DENMARK. SHE HAS WORKED AT SEVERAL UNIVERSITIES, SINCE 2009 AT THE ROYAL DANISH ACADEMY. HER PUBLICATIONS EXPLORE SPACE FROM AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE, E.G., ARCHITECTURES OF DISMANTLING AND RESTRUCTURATION. SPACES OF DANISH WELFARE, 1970-PRESENT (EDS. RAAHAUGE, KIRSTEN MARIE, KATRINE LOTZ, DEANE SIMPSON & MARTIN SØBERG) LARS MÜLLER PUBLISHERS 2022; SPACES OF WELFARE. SPECIAL ISSUE OF JOURNAL OF ARCHITECTURE & CULTURE 10.1 (EDS. RUNA JOHANNESSEN, MARTIN SØBERG & KIRSTEN MARIE RAAHAUGE) 2022; BETWEEN MAGIC AND RATIONALITY: ON THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE MODERN WORLD (EDS. JÖHNCKE, STEFFEN, VIBEKE STEFFEN & KIRSTEN MARIE RAAHAUGE) MUSEUM TUSCULANUM PRESS 2015. [email protected]