The installation Ganz Licht und frei in der Frankfurter Küche (Light and Free in the Frankfurt Kitchen), by Darya von Berner is a tribute to the architects Ernst May (1886-1970) and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (1897-2000). It was shown in the Ernst-May-Haus, the prototype house of the New Frankfurt, inside of the world’s only almost completely preserved Frankfurt Kitchen ‘in situ’.

The kitchen represented in its day, the introduction of a rational furniture design, electric light, as well as functionality and time savings in terms of movements. Darya von Berner alters the design of this first ‘modern kitchen’ in her intervention. If in former times light bulbs replaced candles and kerosene lamps, today a supple and flexible light tape is used, to trace paths on the floor and the furniture surfaces. This new lighting technology (Light Tape®) is more environmental friendly than LED light, hundred meters of light tape, use in fact less energy than a conventional 100 Watt light bulb. However, it was Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky´s open and flexible thinking that developed new concepts. In turn these concepts required new technologies, which over time became environmentally more and more integrated into the world we are living in today.

The installation was presented at the Luminale 2012 (part of Light + Building, the world’s leading trade fair for architecture and engineering).

Furthermore a short documentary film about von Berners installation in the Frankfurt Kitchen was presented by the ernst-may- gesellschaft (mayfilm 6: ‘mehr licht!’ by Dr. Otto Schweitzer).