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In a 1964 newspaper article titled La cuisine du sens, Roland Barthes developed his arguments from the assumption that we continuoulsy read objects in our surroundings such as pictures, clothing, advertisements, a dinner host’s favorite wine if not a popstar’s hair-style and equally all „second messages“ hidden in these „first messages“. Any ‚professional’ readers’ (which of course are for Barthes semiologists and linguists) job is to enter the „cuisine du sens“ and to reflect on the underlying systems and rules which we apply to organize and decipher the signs we read. In Barthes’ understanding, it’s their task to make surveys about everything that is „theatre“, i. e. everything ranging from „the clerical pomp to the Beatles’ hair-style, from night-pyjama to debates in international politics.“

Let’s take it as given that my recent accidental find of a brochure with the recent offerings for built-in kitchens provides enough legitimate reasons to take Barthes’s notion of „cuisine du sens“ in the most literal way possible. After being reminded by the selling company that the forthcoming Christmas events make the acquisition of a new kitchen very urgent, one starts in fact reading the pictures. The pictures’ function is to allow us to decipher the possible future meanings a certain kind of built-in kitchen could evoke in our apartment. It’s clear that we look at this picture in such a way that we recognize in them representations of a kitchen that we can possibly own.

But Barthes’ proposition that „signs are constituted by their differences“ which he defines as the crucial challenge of any semiologist’s undertaking is perfectly true here as well. The difference between the offered options is solely based on differences in color, quality of surface as well as in the style of knobs and handles as signs of certain meanings with which we can present ourselves. Since possible distinctions by a kitchen’s functionality have become less important and furthermore the production of kitchens require the acceptance of strict standards, we see in each picture basically identical products that only differ in the design of their fronts and surfaces.

Therefore the decision for one of these kitchens will be in the end a decision for a flat surface different from other flat surfaces. A „country-style“ kitchen is different from a „modern design“ kitchen by variation of their surfaces. And it’s obvious that these small variations are enough to allow us to make these readings: we seem to know that a black, glossy surface should be read as „modern design“ and that a wooden colored surface by contrast should be read as „country style“. And of course, this is possible only because of their difference from each other.

But these definitions of styles used in some of the product descriptions here are of course part of a larger set of meanings resp. lifestyles which we seem to allude to, if we buy one of these kitchens. What’s offered is a framing stage design for private life in our kitchen’s appartment which is marked by being distinct in color, quality of surface, i. e. a background that looks in a way that provokes the reading and ‚makes the difference’ with which we feel comfortable to be seen with. If one agrees, it is legitimate to speak of „built-in cuisines de sens“ whose rules of meaning production are based on the differences between surfaces.

References:

Barthes, Roland. “La Cuisine du sens.” In: Barthes, Roland. L’aventure sémiologique. Paris, 1985, p. 227-229. English translation: here.

More English posts: here.