The History of Built-in Cabinets

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The history of Built-in Cabinets

‘Because built-in cabinetry is the interior architecture, it is, in fact, the home. When you come into a house with extensive built-ins, you feel immediately welcomed…you have entered a home’ Ed Weinstein Furniture that is made as an integral part of the fabric of a building, or built-in as an addition, is not a modern phenomenon, but has a long history. It has been an essential part of the Japanese interior for many centuries, and an important part of the Western furnishing environment since the earliest homes.
Some of the earliest surviving furniture are the built-in bednooks, cupboards and ‘dressers’ in the Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae in the Orkneys. This built-in furniture was constructed from stone along with the rest of the house, and formed an integral part of the interior as well as the fabric of the building. In medieval churches, stone seats and benches were commonly built into walls of chapter houses and choirs. Similarly, in medieval domestic dwellings, the use of fixed wooden benches was common in a range of houses and continued up to the 17th century. Cupboards and beds were also commonly built-in.
Space-saving, economic and practical, built-in furniture has a long tradition, and even when moveable furniture became more widespread in high-style interiors, built-in structures continued to be important in vernacular buildings and remained the rule in most commonplace buildings up to the 19th century.
There are also regional traditions in built-in furniture across the British Isles. In Devon, for example, farmhouses often had a kitchen with a fixed wooden bench under a window wall to be used alongside a long table. A deep recess next to the fireplace had a large built-in cupboard which was used for storage and display, while a built-in corner cupboard was also on the other side for storage. In the north of England, it was common to screen off the inglenook by a wooden seat called a heck or speer, built into a wall divider. In the Lake District, a cupboard would be built into the wall where the fire was made, fitted with a tight door. This allows the cupboard interior to be kept dry for salt spices etc, and was also convenient for cooking – an early pragmatic solution provided by the built-in approach.
	The best known examples of historic built-in furniture are beds. It was in Scotland that the built in bed tradition was most strong. These box beds provided privacy and a degree of warmth in a one or two bedroom house. This Scottish custom remained in both the highland and island areas as well as in the lowland areas (for example in Robert Owen’s New Lanark as well as tenement blocks) well into the 20th century.
However, not all built-in furniture was associated with the vernacular or common home. In the late 17th century, Cornelius Meyer (1629-1701) published designs for an amazing arrangement of built-in and folding fixtures and fittings to furnish his bizarre one-room fantasy. During the period of the later 17th and 18th centuries, certain forms of high-style built-in furniture came into vogue.
	Room arrangements by such designers as Jean Berain and J.-F Blondel often included luxurious beds built into niches, and built-in buffets fitted into wall panelling. On a less grand scale, the built-in alcove was a feature of the first half of the 18th century. These display niches were often surmounted with a decorated semi-hemispherical head with pilasters framing the recess. These recesses became less popular with the decline of the panelled wall, but have enjoyed a revival in some later 20th century interiors.
The development of libraries in the 17th century, and their wide acceptance in the 18th century, promoted a demand for book storage for which built-in bookcases provided the ideal solution. In many instances, they were contrived as part of the architectural shell of the room and were treated as such by the architect. Adam's magnificent Neo-Classical library at Osterly Park is an example of the grand architectural treatment that was popular in the 18th century.
By the later 19th century, the traditional built-in inglenooks of cottage homes came back into fashion, adapted to the Arts and Crafts-influenced middle-class tastes of the time. In addition to this revival, there was a taste for built-in window seats and the so-called ‘cosy corner’. These, which may have been derived from medieval originals, were designed to be an integral part of the wall. Cosy-corners often had elaborate upholstery and carved features to give an air of luxury and exoticism. In contrast to the romantic and frivolous nature of the Victorian cosy-corner, built-in furniture at the turn of the 20th century became increasingly considered for its more practical advantages. The taste for built-in wardrobes in the early 20th century was noted by the German architect, Herman Muthesius. In his ‘The Modern English House’, he wrote that ‘built-in cupboards are the most characteristic feature of the modern English bedroom’. He also generally agreed with R.E Edis as to the hygenic and artistic benefits of built-in furniture, which keep the room ‘free and empty, so creating the impression of space and size’. The combination of cleanliness, simple function, and the integrated nature of built-in furniture held great appeal. The development of 20th century built-in furniture was also influenced by changes in social conditions. Christine Frederick, in her ‘Household Engineering’ designed a house which could be maintained solely by a housewife. No doubt influenced also by the developments in office and factory planning and layout, she also made extensive use of built-in furniture to eliminate moving and make cleaning easier.
	Alongside the purely practical and hygenic considerations, there was a growing trend among some architects to create a modern integrated building incorporating shell, interior and furnishings. Built-in furniture became espoused by a new generation of Modernist architects including Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Courbusier, Pierre Chareux and Rietveld, who recognised the remarkable cohesion and rationality built-in furniture can give to an architectural concept.
The concept of the Modernist house as a ‘machine for living in’, was developed, which, while rational, was also human and warm, based around the everyday needs of an active – and interactive – family. Built-in furniture was also used to lend definition and a multitude of functions to the new broad, open-plan spaces. From their radical examples, built-in furniture was to become one of the hallmarks of most Modernist interiors.
After World War II, pre-war architects’ ideas were used, albeit in diluted form, in general practise and built-in furniture became incorporated into English prefabricated housing. Features such as a built-in sideboard between the kitchen and dining room, with a hatch and two-way drawers, were widespread. Another idea was to have cupboards built-in as a double wall between two bedrooms, so that one half served one room, and the other half served the second room. In 1947, Modern Homes Illustrated praised built-in furniture as being labour-saving and space-saving, and for ‘living’ it was seen as particularly suitable for smaller homes.
	Custom made built in furniture today is not about pre-fabricated houses, but about adapting your own living space to the best possible result. Ideally, storage-space design takes into account the habits of the people who live in it and uses creative ideas to make the most of the existing structure, drawing on traditional models and at the same time using innovative design solutions. There’s certainly no single solution to achieve storage Zen, but individually designed pieces can combine to provide ideal storage scenarios.