A table and a few chairs
Act III: Eating together

Eating together has always been an act of culture, following a set of rules and making spaces - from the domestic realm to the public sphere. The picnic-blanket is considered the minimal element that creates a space for eating, even though today a Tupperware with food in it can already make an eating space. The blanket and the food put on top of it make an ephemeral room that can be shared for eating and drinking. (1) The kitchen is merely represented in the picnic-box that carries all the utensils needed for the act of eating. A picnic is reduced to a minimum, a rather informal way of having a meal together, whereas the story of eating together is much more ideologically loaded and complex.

The idea of the dining room, made up by a kind of table of various heights and chairs or sofas around it, has been the space were people could come together throughout the history. The Romans would lie on a couch while eating. For the noble classes of the Middle Ages the room was rather a hall, where all of the population of the «household» could eat together, coming with a codex of hierarchy and behaviors. The family would sit at the head table, with the rest of the population seated in order of diminishing rank away from them. The dining halls used to have heigh ceilings and large chimneys. Later, more intimate spaces were developed in contrast, so called «parlers», due to political and social changes and to the greater comfort offered by these rooms. Over time, the nobility took more of their meals in the parlour that became functionally a dining room. Eventually, the Great Hall would only be used for special occasions. (2) The way of eating suggested by these rooms also suggested a specific culture coming with table manners, ideas of hierarchy and gender. Eating nicely with forks, knifes and spoons, knowing the order of courses, is an act of civilization. (3) In the 18th century, ladies of the house would withdraw after eating to the drawing room, leaving the dining room to gentlemen for drinks. This led to the dining room’s connotation as a masculine room, while also a shift in the women’s role can be noted. (4)

«Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management» was published in 1861 and offers a handbook on how the household should be organized. In the chapter on dinners and dining she writes: «Man, it has been said, is a dining animal. Creatures of the inferior races eat and drink; man only dines. It has also been said that he is a cooking animal. (…) The rank which a people occupy in the grand scale may be measured by their way of taking their meals, as well as by their way of treating their women. The nation which knows how to dine has learnt the leading lesson of progress. It implies both the will and the skill to reduce to order, and surround with idealisms and graces, the more material conditions of human existence; and wherever that will and that skill exist, life cannot be wholly ignoble. Dinner, being the grand solid meal of the day, is a matter of considerable importance; and a well-served table is a striking index of human ingenuity and resource.» (5) She offers practical ideas on how to arrange a dinner, suggesting «Let the number of your guests never exceed twelve, so that the conversation may be general.» (6) She also offers a set of seasonal dinners that can be prepared each month. (7) Further she notes: «It has been said that ‘the destiny of nations depends on the manner in which they are fed;’ and a great gastronomist exclaims, ‘Tell me what kind of food you eat, and I will tell you what kind of man you are.’(…)––‚The pleasures of the table belong to all ages, to all conditions, to all countries, and to all eras; they mingle with all other pleasures, and remain, at last, to console us for their departure. The discovery of a new dish confers more happiness upon humanity than the discovery of a new star.» (8) All of this rules and formulas were directed towards a class of high status, for households with less social status different rules applied. Eating simply in the kitchen was still common throughout times.

With industrialized production the meaning of the household changed and also the availability of foods. This led to the broadening of the middle classes (9) as production makes goods cheaper and therefore common. One could say, that as the meat-consumption democratizes so does the model of the housewife, leading to a status where the Western world lives like the former nobility - on the costs of the rest of the world. (10) Standardization labeled eating in the kitchen as «unhealthy» and «dirty» and pushed their model of the minimal kitchen. (11) The separate eating room reached all of the classes, removing the dinner from the working space. (12) Modernity introduced a connection between kitchen and dining place, the pass-through, the «Atelierküche» could be read in a similar way.

In «Pattern Language» written in 1977 Christopher Alexander once again emphasizes the importance of eating together. He lists events as the «holy communion, wedding feasts, birthday parties, Christmas dinner, the family evening meal» as Wester Christian examples of communal eating. He says «There are almost no important human evens or institutions which are not given their power to bind, their sacral character, by food and drink» (13) He quotes Thomas Merton: «A feast is of such a nature that it draws people to itself and makes them leave everything else in order to participate in its joys. To feast together is to bear witness tot he joy one has at being with his friends. The mere act of eating together, quite apart from a banquet or some other festival occasion, is by its very nature a sign of friendship and of `communion`.» Alexander seeps a loss of understanding of the spiritual meaning of everyday tasks. He puts the table in the center of family life as the representation of it. The Latin word «convivium» refers to «the mystery of sharing life». He notes a loss of belonging in cities, where many people meet but it is seemingly hard to find those one wants to share with. He suggests eating and drinking together as possible events for meetings and creating contacts between people and adds: «Give every institution and social group a place where people can eat together. Make the common meal a regular event.» (14)

This already refers to dining and eating (together) having moved out of a solely domestic scale, establishing public shared moments that take place in restaurants or also in the so-called «Volkshaus», that is a community and trade union driven initiative from the 20th century, providing activities and shared tables for workers. Restaurants are also ritualized spaces one could say. Rooting from a class differentiation in society within post-industrialization and modernity. When cuisine emerged for certain elites, that materialized in space of the restaurant as invented in Paris. These were bouillons restaurants, a place to have a soup to restore the body. The word «restaurant» was popularized then as the place to restore bodies. (15) The restaurant, the public dining room, still caries a sense of spectacle within it. In Zurich, the Kronenhalle, was regarded a place were artists, thinkers and a high class would meet and this taste lingers on. Today, restaurants are clearly under economic pressure, which means that eating out in Zurich cannot be afforded by everyone. In opposition to this is the idea of «fast food» which reduces the act of eating to a minimum again.

A shift from the formalized domestic room to the formalized public sphere can be noted, mixed up by variants of informal eating at home or on the streets. The dining room still exists but has significantly changed its form and meaning. Domestic dining halls are becoming more important within the co-operative housing movements of Zurich again. In the former dining hall of Zurich’s «Einküchenhaus» there is a restaurant today. While newer concepts as Karthago or Kalkbreite still offer these communal eating spaces.

(1) Neumeyer, Fritz. Der heimische Herd. Architekturtheoretische Betrachtungen zum Bauen und Wohnen, nebst Essen und Trinken, in: Petra Hagen Hodgson undRolf Toyka (Hsg.). Der Architekt, der Koch und der gute Geschmack, Basel: Birkhäuser, 2007.
(2) The dining room.
(3) Lellwitz, Anne-Petra. Die Zivilisierung des Essens. In: Oikos. Von der Feuerstelle zur Mikrowelle, Giessen: Ananas-Verlag, 1992, p. 364-373.
(4) Lellwitz, 1992, p. 364.
(5) Beeton, Isabella Mary, and Nicola, Humble. Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management. Abridged ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 365-67.
(6) Beeton, 2000, p. 368.
(7) Beeton, 2000, p. 369-90.
(8) Beeton, 2000, p. 390.
(9) Lellwitz, 1992, p. 372.
(10) Lellwitz, 1992, p. 373.
(11) S.N., Die moderne Küche im sozialen Wohnungsbau, in: Wohnen, Band (Jahr): 31 (1956), Heft 7.
(12)S.N., Die moderne Küche im sozialen Wohnungsbau, in: Wohnen, Band (Jahr): 31 (1956), Heft 7.
(13) Alexander, Christopher, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein. A Pattern Language Which Generates Multi-Service Centers. Berkeley Ca: Center for environmental structure, 1968, p. 696.
(14) Alexander, Christopher, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein. A Pattern Language Which Generates Multi-Service Centers. Berkeley Ca: Center for environmental structure, 1968, p. 696-99.
(15) «Politics of food». In: The Funambulist. Paris: The Funambulist, 2020, p. 24.


images
1 - Sarah Wigglesworth and Jeremy Till, 2002.
2 - Neufert
3 - Charles and Ray Eames, Powers of Ten, 1977.
4 - Lellwitz, Anne-Petra. Die Zivilisierung des Essens. In: Oikos. Von der Feuerstelle zur Mikrowelle, Giessen: Ananas-Verlag, 1992, p. 371.
5 - V&A
6 - Bräuche im alten Zürich
7,8,9,10,11,12 - BAZ
13 -
14 -