8 Elements of a Modern Kitchen
Written by Rebekah Zaveloff, Creative Director, KitchenLab Interiors and Imparfait Design Studio
It can be tough to distinguish between modern and contemporary, and for good reason. Many spaces are both modern and contemporary, and people often use the terms interchangeably, but there are differences in look and terminology. “Contemporary” typically means of the moment or current, the design of right now. “Modern” refers to a specific design style from the early to mid-20th century that broke with the traditional styles of the days before the Industrial Revolution.
“Modern” can be a tricky term because sometimes it’s used to describe something that’s the opposite of traditional, which varies depending on the time period. The decision of women in the 1920s to swap corsets for flapper dresses was modern at the time, but today those clothes are antiques.
When I think of modern kitchen designs, I think of frameless cabinets, sleek and simple hardware, strong horizontal lines and a lack of ornamentation, with the natural beauty of the materials shining through. All of these features and more will be discussed below.
1. Flat-panel door style
This is sometimes referred to as a slab-door style and is a signature element of modern kitchen design. You might see a modern kitchen using a Shaker door style, but that often falls into transitional rather than modern — which is not to say it can't be used; it's just not a purist's perspective.
Project Lakeshore Drive
2. Frameless, full-overlay cabinet construction
A bunch of terms are thrown around to describe this type of cabinet construction: frameless, Euro frameless, overlay, full overlay. They all mean the same thing, that the door overlays the cabinet box. This style is the most often used in modern kitchens because it's sleeker than a flush-inset cabinet, which is often associated with more traditional kitchen, cabinet and furniture design.
When the doors are closed on a frameless cabinet, you can't see the frame at all except for about a ⅛-inch shadow line between cabinets.
3. Sleek and simple hardware
In modern kitchens you’ll most often see C-channel hardware that’s integrated into the cabinet, as well as tubular pulls or flat linear pulls. Lots of times the horizontal lines of the cabinets will be accentuated by cabinet hardware running the full length of the drawers and doors.
4. Lack of ornamentation
Always a signature of modern, this is often where contemporary and modern stop being similar. Whereas you might see patterned tile shapes or multiple materials with texture, color and patina in a contemporary kitchen, you won’t see much of that in a modern kitchen.
5. Reliance on the beauty of natural materials
It's not to say that modern kitchens can't have a little bit of ornamentation, but when they do, they get it from the natural characteristics in a material, such as the horizontal grain of oak when its rift cut or the natural beauty and veining of marble.
Project Logan
6. Emphasis on horizontal lines
You might not notice at first, but many modern kitchens share a tendency toward the horizontal: long, wide lines, stacks of drawer cabinets lined in a row, hardware set long and horizontal to accentuate the lines of the drawers.
Project Paulina
These cabinets have horizontal grooves, in addition to the grain being horizontal on all the cabinet fronts. In a traditional kitchen, the grain might be run vertically on doors or center panels with a vertical orientation.
The backsplash also makes a strong horizontal statement with the tiles themselves set and stacked on a horizontal grid.
7. Consistency in style of accent pieces
Accents like lighting, tables, chairs and bar stools all have to be considered when designing a kitchen. In a modern kitchen, these elements will stay consistent rather than deviate like you’d see in an eclectic kitchen. The pieces here show simple and clean lines.
Project Williams
There's nothing to say that color can't be introduced into a modern kitchen, whether it's in the accents or the cabinets.
8. Industrial elements
There’s something about the unadorned elements of industrial details that are instantly modern. A sleek metal range and hood, and the complete lack of ornamentation on the cabinets complete the look of this modern kitchen.
Project William
