Industrial-style kitchens: a trend that teams styling with functionality

Top-performing, functional and featuring a strong personality. Our focus today is on industrial-style kitchens. This type of kitchen proves very popular, because it is capable of combining an extremely trendy design with the superior performance levels of a professional kitchen.

The origins of industrial style

Industrial style originated in the United States in the Fifties/Sixties. Indeed, at around that time, creative minds in New York began to convert abandoned warehouses and industrial buildings, transforming them into homes and workspaces. This is how lofts, used for housing and offices, came to be: distinguished by very high ceilings, huge floor-to-ceiling windows, open-plan settings, and exposed bricks and pipes.

Having started off in New York, this trend was exported to European cities in the Seventies. This was the beginning of what from then on came to be referred to as “Industrial style”. A style that heralds imperfection as its distinguishing feature. A genuine revolution compared to the image of the bourgeois American home, that impeccable family home that the public had been seeing in advertisements throughout the 1960s.

The defining aspects of industrial style

From metropolitan lofts, industrial style stretched to other types of housing over time. What distinguishes this trend are primarily the materials, which have to be natural, unrefined (in other words “rough”) and with a vintage look (wood and metal, first and foremost).
Favourite colours are the strongest, such as black and all shades of grey. The furniture and accessories are mainly recycled or feature a “vintage” look.
But most of all, the number one rule is the total absence of bells and whistles and a tendency to display what is normally concealed from view.

What distinguishes an industrial style kitchen

The kitchen is one of the rooms in the home that best accommodates industrial style. Industrial style kitchens are usually open-plan kitchens with an island or peninsula, characterised by clean-cut silhouettes and bold materials. First and foremost, stainless steel.
Indeed, stainless steel is a favourite among industrial style kitchen materials. This material can be picked only for a few key elements, usually the hood, and the washing or cooking areas, or it can be used to design the entire kitchen.

Industrial style stainless steel kitchens constitute the perfect combination of aesthetic styling and functionality. Stainless steel is in fact the same material used to make professional kitchens. So their styling depends prevalently on functionality. Professionally-derived kitchens therefore stand out for their timeless, slightly retro and decidedly “rough” design.

Choosing a professional kitchen not only allows you to create the perfect industrial style ambiance in your home, but also to benefit from a kitchen with top performance in terms of ergonomics, hard-wearing resistance and hygiene.

A kitchen that is a true beauty to behold, but also designed to spoil our guests with dishes worthy of a Michelin-star restaurant, or even better, prepared for us by a real chef in your own home.

It is no coincidence that these days industrial style kitchens are in very high demand. They are the new luxury kitchens, which are proving truly popular among celebrities and featuring in the trendiest interior design magazines.

So let’s look at the characteristics of an industrial style kitchen in more detail.

1. Stainless steel, plenty of stainless steel

As we mentioned earlier, stainless steel is one of the star players in industrial style kitchens. Metal – stainless steel, but also iron, cast iron, aluminium and copper – is in fact one of the most commonly-used materials in industrial buildings where this particular style originated.
Whether it is polished, orbitally polished or brushed, stainless steel is and continues to be the most suitable material not just for industrial kitchens, but for all kitchens in general. Not only because it lends its surroundings a strong, bold personality, but also because it is antibacterial, easy to clean and extremely resistant to impact, corrosion and high temperatures. That’s what makes it the favourite material among professional chefs, in both their restaurants, and in their homes.

2. Untreated wood, concrete, glass

So not just stainless steel. Industrial style kitchens also stand out for their mix of different materials. Exposed concrete or resin floors, to recall the ambiance of warehouses and industrial buildings. Floor-to-ceiling windows with iron features to separate spaces without limiting natural light. And vintage-look furniture or accessories, in untreated wood, to warm up the atmosphere with their imperfect textures.

3. Walls packed with punch

When it comes to an industrial kitchen, the first thought that springs to mind is exposed brick walls. In actual fact, it isn’t always possible to have such scenic walls. When bricks are not an option, you can focus on different solutions to add character to the walls. For instance, tiling your kitchen wall with conventional white tiles (such as those found in old London Underground stations, for example, which are now back in fashion with a vengeance) or using textured paint to replicate the effect of concrete, or even choosing wallpaper with raw decorations. 
Plenty of solutions for a single goal: to surprise!

4. Everything in full view

While the distinguishing feature of industrial style is not to hide anything away, it goes without saying that industrial kitchens love to show off, rather than to conceal behind cabinet doors. This applies to household appliances, as well as crockery, cutlery and pots and pans. So you need space for shelves, open storage shelving and cabinets, to leave everything in full view. The goal is to create an informal and relaxed atmosphere. A kitchen where everything is in sight, stress-free.

5. Minimal style

Industrial style kitchens are distinguished by clean-cut, daring silhouettes. A minimal style that distinguishes both the furniture and the lighting. The lamps used in industrial kitchens are elemental and functional. Nearly always made of metal, like old workshop lamps. Whether large suspensions, wall lamps or simple naked light bulbs hanging from a wire (these days, there are some beautiful light bulbs with LED lights and a vintage look…), bells and whistles are definitely unwelcome.

6. Vintage signs and recycled objects

Since industrial style was launched with the aim of gentrifying abandoned spaces, it goes without saying that recycled objects and furniture are just as important when decorating an industrial style kitchen. From vintage advertising billboards to old workbenches transformed into dining tables, from lamps recovered from old factories to metal chairs, even better if they are a little worn, uncovered from a market stall. The goal is always and only the same: to value imperfections and the signs of passing time.

Industrial style kitchens by Abimis

Abimis designs and produces professionally-derived stainless steel kitchens. Industrial style domestic kitchens, which combine a unique design with the superior performance of Michelin-star restaurant kitchens.

All Abimis kitchens are made of AISI 304 stainless steel, a biologically neutral, durable and extremely hard-wearing metal alloy. The external surface is available in three different steel finishes – orbitally polished, brushed or mirror-finish – or it can be glossy/matt painted in all the RAL colours.
But that’s not all. Abimis kitchens can be customised by combining other materials with the stainless steel structure: from wood to marble, to acrylic stones, such as Corian® and HI-MACS®.