German kitchens, Japanese amps, and Afropop gems

BRILLIANT CORNERS - I have a day job at a museum. One of my favorite things about working there is taking the elevator from my office down to one of the floors open to the public; I walk into the galleries through a discreet panel in the wall. This makes me feel like I'm in one of those horror-movie manors with a tunnel concealed behind a bookshelf. Sometimes I startle people, which I kind of enjoy.

- ALEX HALBERSTADT

Mostly I like spending time looking at art, especially in the early mornings when the galleries are empty. Lately, I've been watching art handlers hanging a roughly 100'-long tapestry depicting some manner of planetary jetsam-or maybe they are aquatic plantsby Nigerian artist Otobong Nkanga. And I make regular trips to a small theater to watch mesmerizing footage of Orchard Street in working-class lower Manhattan, shot in 1955 by veteran filmmaker Ken Jacobs. Captured on warm, saturated 16mm film, the long-gone people on the screen appear as vividly alive as the museumgoers around me.

My favorite-ever thing at the museum, though, is a life-sized kitchen. Austrian architect Grete Lihotzky designed it for a Frankfurt housing complex in 1927, and it became the prototype for the purpose-built, appliance-filled cooking spaces we know today. Aside from its novelty, what set the Frankfurt Kitchen apart is its stated aim: to improve the lives of women working in the home through the application of attention and, in the broadest sense, love.

Lihotzky came by her love through rational means. She used time-motion studies and interviews with housewives and women's groups to create a marvel of efficiency. Just over 6' by 11', her kitchen contains a revolving stool, a gas stove, a foldaway ironing board, an adjustable ceiling light, and a removable garbage drawer, as well as built-in labeled containers for everything from rice to potato starch, each with a spout for easy pouring. The beauty of the design lay in the details: Lihotzky used oak for the flour containers (to repel mealworms) and beech for cutting surfaces (to resist knife gouges and stains). In Weimar Germany, a woman architect was still a rarity, but it is difficult to imagine a man designing a kitchen with such empathy and care. I have often imagined myself preparing food in that little space, with real delight.