Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) · Miracle Mile

The Kitchen and Its Discontents

Now showing27 September 2026 – 14 March 2027·$30

Two kitchens from LACMA's collection in conversation: Schütte-Lihotzky's 1926–30 Frankfurt kitchen and Perriand and Le Corbusier's 1948–50 Marseille kitchen. Resnick Pavilion.

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The Frankfurt Kitchen let you pour flour and beans out of built-in bins. Early versions kept those bins in a low cabinet until mothers of young children objected, so in this one, from Frankfurt's Bornheim estate, they sit out of reach.

It's a standalone show embedded in Home of the Future, built around two kitchens: Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky's, modelled on factory layouts and ship galleys to cut wasted steps, and Charlotte Perriand's open "kitchen-bar" for Le Corbusier's Unité in Marseille. You walk the walls clockwise past real kitchens and their critics: Depression-era photographs, a Virginia Slims ad, Martha Rosler's six-minute Semiotics of the Kitchen. Andrea Zittel's drawing merges kitchen and bathroom into one portable unit, a floor plan LA studio listings got to first.

Architect magazine says the show is "less interested in simply celebrating these canonical examples of modern design than in questioning the assumptions beneath them." Resnick Pavilion, included with general admission, timed slots recommended. Closed Wednesdays, open until 8pm Fridays, until 14 March 2027.

Look for

The Frankfurt Kitchen, Bornheim estate, c.1926-30
Look for the seated preparation area, the fold-down ironing board and the pour-out bins for grains and beans, raised high after mothers complained.
Perriand and Le Corbusier's Unité kitchen, c.1952
Oak and aluminium-clad, with an open kitchen-bar so the cook could stay with family and guests, and an icebox placed to take ice delivered daily.
Martha Rosler, Semiotics of the Kitchen, 1975
A six-minute video parodying Julia Child: Rosler names kitchen tools from Apron onwards, her gestures turning from graceful to absurdly violent.
Kelli Connell, Kitchen Tension, 2002
A tense moment between two women in a kitchen, except both are the same model, Kiba Jacobson, shot separately and combined digitally.
Ralph Bartholomew Jr.'s nickel oven, 1960
A brunette model in a satin cocktail dress shows off a nickel-chrome wall oven whose sheen matches her dress, without cooking anything.