Darya von Berner

Ganz Licht und frei in der Frankfurter Küche

ernst-may-haus
im burgfeld 136
frankfurt am main

openning: april 12, 2012. 19:00 hrs
from april 12 to may 13. 2012

The installation Ganz Licht und frei in der Frankfurter Küche (Light and Free in the Frankfurt Kitchen), by Darya von Berner is a tribute to the architects Ernst May (1886-1970) and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (1897-2000).
It takes place in the Ernst-May-Haus, the prototype house of the New Frankfurt, inside of the world’s only almost completely preserved Frankfurt Kitchen ‘in situ’.

The kitchen represented in its day, the introduction of a rational furniture design, electric light, as well as functionality and time savings in terms of movements.

Darya von Berner changes the design of this first ‘modern kitchen’ in her intervention, if lightbulbs replaced candles and kerosene lamps in former times, today a supple and flexible light tape is used to trace paths on floor and kitchen furniture surfaces.

This new lighting technology (Light Tape®) is more environmental friendly than LED light, hundred meters of light tape use in fact less energy than a conventional 100 Watt light bulb.

However, it was Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky´s open and flexible thinking that developed new concepts. In turn these concepts required new technologies which over time became environmentally more and more integrated into the world we are living in today.