Julia's Kitchen by Design
Julia and Paul Child designed this kitchen when they moved into their home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1961. They had been living abroad for more than a decade due to Paul’s work as a cultural attaché with the United States Information Service. After living in Paris, Marseilles, Germany, and Norway, Julia and Paul were ready to set up a kitchen of their own.
A Place for Everything
While kitchens of the 1950s and '60s were often designed to hide tools from view, Julia and Paul preferred to hang their pots and pans on a pegboard for quick and easy access. Outlines Paul traced on the pegboard advised where that pan belonged after it had been used. Later, for the benefit of guest cooks, snapshots were added.
Julia towering over the stove in her Paris apartment, 1948
To accommodate Julia’s height of six feet, three inches, the solid maple counters in her Cambridge kitchen are thirty-eight inches high, two inches taller than standard kitchen counters.
Photo by Paul Child. Courtesy of Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University
