Kitchens are all about boxing clever

Picture a box with four backlit folding doors of handmade glass. Open it and see a 120-cm long kitchennete with a microwave, plate rack, cutlery drawers, and other necessities.
The style is Art Deco inspired. The designer? Egyptian-born Amr Al Helmy, who was in Dubai recently at Index 2000, held at the Dubai World Trade Centre, exhibiting what he calls cultural kitchens.
While Art Deco was not on display, exhibits included a Bauhaus kitchen and one with a marine theme, complete with steering wheels, brass portholes, et al. The only missing element in the latter was the tang of sea-spray and a few gulls.
Thwarted ambitions do strange things to people. Some get bitter, resign themselves to failure or blame fate. Helmy, who aspired to become an architect but did not have the necessary qualifications, did neither, but sublimated his desires in his cultural kitchens. The road was long and winding, but he did not give up. "I went in for applied art," says he.
"In between, I tried my hand at sculpting and learnt a lot about form. Even today, when I see something 300 metres away, I can only see the silhouette. Colour is secondary," he adds. The urge to become an architect continued even after he graduated in applied art, so he started playing with forms and architectural themes in what he terms as "an immature manner."
But, immaturity was what led to his evolution as a designer. Today, his client list includes the famed singer Amr Diab of the "Habibi" fame.
"My mother and father were interested in everything to do with home decoration and that is what paved the path to my creative fulfillment. I started by designing a rustic kitchen for my mother. It was a way of expressing my hunger for architecture," says he.
Soon he was inundated witrh requests to design, but he refused the work. He was not yet ready to go all the way. "I did not experiment very much with my mother's kitchen or she would have beaten me up. Yet everything started falling into place," he adds. His first cultural kitchen came a bit later after graduation – it was a Nubian kitchen. "At that time, I was suddenly introduced to Nubian culture – so I started with a kitchen that related to this culture. In the beginning, I looked at their ornaments, the drawings on the outer walls of their homes, etc, for inspiration. This was the turning point in my life."
So what is the connection between kitchens and architecture? Helmy's focus is on form and silhouette. "The
upper part of the kitchen is like a skyline of a city. The different areas in the kitchen are like houses or buildings put together. Then I play further with this idea and find I can create 3-D effects or linear relations between the work areas, create parallel related areas or circular relationships. At the point of experiencing the Nubian culture in 1981, I asked myself why was I scared to go all the way? Why could I not address the kitchen and its areas as architectural objects? So I started by creating vaults and domes within the kitchen," explains Helmy.
"Initially, I was tied down by the limitations of raw materials and by my own pre-conceived idea of what a kitchen looks like. Then I broke all the rules," says he. The domes functioned as hoods and the units were vaults.
"In the beginning, I had great ideas but did not know much about wood and the practical details. So, I not only tried to learn about wood but also formed a team which could convert my ideas into reality," says he.
Helmy is quick to explain that by cultural, he does not mean a literal interpretation of the culture. "Of course, the Nubians do not have such kitchens. This was my interpretation of their culture. Unless you are original, which is a very rare phenomenon, your design must relate in some way to a culture to make it a soul affair," says he.
He creates designs derived from cultures such as Andalusian, Chinese and Egyptian as well as periods and movements in design history like Shaker, Art Deco, Georgian, Bauhaus, Decon (the latter is his latest design), and so on. Imitation is not the best form of flattery, according to him. Designing goes way beyond that.
"I read, I travel to these countries, I absorb, I go into small streets and take thousands of pictures, I sketch and I interpret the symbolic representations of these cultures. The poorer the country, the more interesting," says he.
"Suddenly, the design falls into place. I have experimented for years and find that people react differently to objects and cultures due to certain collective memories that go way back in time. In the end, the kitchen is like a box – it is purely a functional area. But when you put a certain symbol within, it tells a particular story. You react, and the interaction starts between the kitchen and you."
To Helmy, a kitchen is not just a place where you look at a wall and cook with your back to the world. Kitchens are not just about evenness and exact proportion of heights and distances of work areas. He uses the Bauhaus kitchen to illustrate his views.
"Take the central humungous island in this kitchen. It can also be a place
where you cook facing your friends, your family, your TV. This kitchen is on three levels: A 70-cm level for eating comfortably, then a 90-cm space for cooking and working, and a 110-cm level where you perch on a barstool and sip a cup of coffee or make a call or write. This gives the kitchen architectural aesthetics. Moreover, I have used powerful raw materials like stainless steel surfaces. I have softened and added warmth by putting thick wooden handles, which can be used as a towel rack or to hang ladles or spoons," says he.
The Decon kitchen he has built was inspired by the Guggenheim Museum in Spain. His showroom in Maadi, Egypt, also sells accessories related to the kitchen. "While you can experience the feeling of being on a cruise in my Marine kitchen, the Art Deco one can be fitted into any room. The Andalusian kitchen is the most popular one – it just supports my belief of collective memories," says Helmy.
There is a Helmy book on the cards. "I am planning to write a book – on kitchens as a human being," says he. What is his idea of a great designer? "A good designer should be able to surprise himself before he surprises other people," he laughs.