Zwischen Küche und Stadt : Zur Verräumlichung gegenwärtiger Essenspraktiken

• Between kitchen and city : On the spatialization of contemporary eating practices

von Mende, Julia; Bernhardt, Anne-Julchen (Thesis advisor); Hauser, Susanne (Thesis advisor)

Aachen (2020)
Dissertation / PhD Thesis

Dissertation, Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, 2020

Abstract

In everyday lives of urban dwellers in Germany’s bigger cities, cooking at home has become increasingly uncommon, while the supply of spatio-temporal flexible fast food outlets, delivery services and the like are growing. So, what is going on in the kitchen, if less and less meals are being cooked and eaten there, whereas at the same time there is hardly a place to be found where people do not consume food and/or beverages? Eating and food preparation have been explored from multidisciplinary perspectives. However, little is known about their everyday spatial circumstances. Hence, the study seeks to fill this research gap by looking at food practices and their spatial (dis)orders in the urban context of German cities. Within the interdisciplinary field of architecture and the social and cultural sciences, the complexity of the research object is met by a combination of field research, interviews and analytical drawings. Explorations in kitchens in private households in Berlin lead to places out of home, such as traffic junctions, office kitchenettes, rental kitchens and gastronomic venues. Along the concept of spatialization, spatio-temporal usage patterns, the meaning of spaces and their creation as well as modifications in processual appropriation are investigated. Transitory practices, the effectiveness of existing spatial structures and material objects in the kitchen at home and elsewhere, spatial reallocations and blurred boundaries between the private household and the city as well as the inversion of the private and public spheres are described as phenomena of spatialization of contemporary eating practices. These phenomena are interpreted against the background of historical excurses and the present discourse in social sciences. In particular Hartmut Rosa's theory of "social acceleration" serves to identify the underlying determinants. The study provides insights into the current spatial contexts of urban everyday eating practices and shows their interconnectedness with all areas of everyday life.