Culinary art - kitchen designs

Sunset, Nov, 1994 by Peter O. Whiteley

COUNTERS SLICE THROUGH CABINETS AND PUNCH through walls. Cabinet doors wrap around corners and hinge in unexpected places. Branches, wooden fish sliced in half, and rusted metal trivets serve as drawer pulls. Multilevel, cast-concrete counters display inlaid pieces of granite, fossil fragments, strips of metal, or an embossed image of a hand. These are some of the delightful surprises that enrich the kitchens crafted by Berkeley designer Fu Tung Cheng.

Cheng brings an artist's eye and reverence for materials into the kitchen--the busiest room in the house. Though form seems to reign in his designs, function has not been forgotten. Cheng never loses sight of the kitchen's essential purposes: meal preparation, cleanup, and storage.

Cheng's work reflects his diverse educational and professional background. An art major in college, he studied painting, sculpture, and printmaking. As a student of architectural history, he was influenced by the fanciful works of Spain's Antonio Gaudi and the eclectic mixed-media texturing of Watts Towers. Once out of school, faced with the inevitable artist's quandary of finding a way to support himself, he became a contractor, gaining practical experience and insight by building other people's designs before creating his own.

What sets Cheng's work apart is the way elements common to every kitchen--cabinets, counters, sinks, shelves, even appliances--fit together. "I try to create a flow between materials, so that two elements might read as one," he explains. He is also constantly experimenting with new uses of familiar materials: "What else is possible of this material?" he asks when he uses plywood, concrete, plaster, stainless steel, or natural stone in his projects. Something as simple as intentionally varying the direction of the grain of the wood used on adjacent cabinets creates a subtle composition enlivened by the play of light upon the facets of the opposing grain.

A handcrafted aesthetic finds expression in nearly every element of Cheng's kitchens (as well as in other rooms he has designed). He employs no off-the-shelf cabinet systems or countertop materials; virtually everything is custom-made. Designing and fabricating a one-of-a-kind concrete counter or stainless steel vent hood requires a substantial investment of time by Cheng and the tradespeople he employs, and of money by his clients (whom he likes to call patrons). But the result is a unique, sculptural space that is as pleasurable to work in as it is to behold.

WELL-COMPOSED WALL in the Berkeley kitchen of Jean Krois and Howard Hertz mixes warm tones of plastered walls and fir cabinets with cool grays of slender metal shelves, cooktop, and concrete base. The beveled end of the butcher-block counter extends into a tall cabinet bisected by a diagonal line. Cheng gave another cabinet's quartet of doors a distinctive look by varying the direction of the wood grain and placing curved pulls at the intersection to form a circle.

A STUDY IN CONTRASTS, Lynne and David Madison's kitchen plays high-tech products and materials off against natural stone and wood. Cheng brought task lighting close to the work surfaces in the high-ceilinged room with low-voltage light fixtures suspended from pairs of cables mounted above the fir cabinets. A chopping block was set into a stainless steel counter that protrudes through an angled end wall. Black slate wall tiles and a center island capped with dark gray concrete provide a visual counterpoint to the honey-colored cabinets and the silvery counter. Distinctive metal elements include an angular steel hood, a zigzagging wine rack, and trivets used as door pulls. The above detail shows one such pull, placed at the unusual convergence of three cabinet doors.

BAND OF BAMBOO appears through the sliding windows in Cheng's own kitchen in Albany, California. The room blends two tones of textured plaster, different types of wood, a concrete countertop, and slate backsplash. The shape of the sleek, angled cabinet leg under the sink is repeated in the heavy-beamed, exposed framing of the display alcove. A molded-concrete counter features inlaid strips of brass that protect a recessed drain board, an inset chopping block, and an undermounted stainless steel sink. A wall-mounted spigot keeps the counter uncluttered (and makes filling tall pots or vases easier). Two halves of a pointed wooden fish that serve as door pulls add a whimsical touch.