TAPAS - Spanish Design for Food: Kitchen

The exhibition sets out to show how design and food have always been interrelated and how the discipline of design has sought solutions to the problems posed by the world of cuisine. In particular, it takes a look at how Spanish culture has come up with ingenious inventions and solutions in this respect throughout its history.

Lékué and Luki Huber are on a quest to reinvent, and improve the basic daily kitchen processes of manipulating, cooking and conserving food based on the application of platinum silicone. The lemon squeezer is the first product in the collection and it pays homage to the basic act of literally squeezing a lemon to get the juice out.

Polyethylene kitchen cutting board.

The folds make it easier to direct the chopped food into the pan.

In 1919 the first olla exprés patent was awarded to José Alix Martínez entitled, “A pan for all kinds of stews that shall be called olla expres”.

Pressure cooker made from 18/10 stainless steel of the highest quality and heat resistant bakelite. The ergonomic design applied to this pressure cooker makes it decidedly easy to use. A sophisticated mechanism makes it possible to open or close the lid with just a light turn of the wrist of one hand, a huge advance over traditional pressure cookers with their long handles and bayonet locks which, as well as inconveniently requiring two hands to close them, make them awkward to use and store in the kitchen.

The designers Dieter Rams and Gabriel Lluelles devised this citrus squeezer in 1970 for the Braun company. It is elegant, stylish and minimalist and is still one of the most efficient on the market. The German company entrusted its design to a Spanish designer, Spain being an expert country when it comes to oranges.

As you slice a loaf of bread, the crumbs fall through the holes in the board into a funnel and then into a tube that deposits them outside the house in a feeder perch for wild birds.

This funnel is a cross between a funnel and a container. It can perfectly well be used for transferring liquids, cereals and grain. The flowing shape of each funnel is cleverly designed so that the complete set fits together perfectly, saving space.

The D10 project’s appearance and efficiency make it a “gourmet” kitchen. Aesthetically it consists of a clean and simple space where the cooker disappears from sight. All you see is a vertical, aromatic herb garden that fills the air with the fresh scents of the countryside and nature. The plants are fixed to the panel by hidden magnets.

While its main function is to hold the plants used for cooking it can also become more dynamic because the plants can be placed on anything made of metal, either inside or outside the house.

Basic spherification is ideal for the production of ravioli and other concoctions with an extremely subtle membrane, a delight to the palate. It also makes it possible to obtain spherical caviar. It needs to be produced quickly because once the sphere is submerged in the bath of calcium, it jellies quickly to become a compact ball.

The Fakircook is a grill developed by Jordi Herrera of the Manairó restaurant in Barcelona. It is a structure made of stainless steel with rows of steel prongs forming a bed where meat and fish are cooked evenly and quickly, being cooked from the inside out in a way that avoids the loss of juices and nutrients.

A made-to-measure machine for heating and sealing brioches filled with ice-cream and with various toppings.

The brioche melts in the mouth with surprising contrasts of temperature and texture; quite an experience. Produced for Rocambolesc, the Roca brothers’ (Celler de Can Roca) ice creameries.

An irregularly-shaped bottle rack made of birch wood. It is the result of research into the modularity of irregular geometry, the need to create an infinitely modular shape and the question of how many bottles of wine can be stored in the home.

With computer-generated geometry the wine rack can be used in various positions, balancing the weight of the wine with that of the rack itself to produce some unexpected movements.

The result of collaboration between Ferran Adrià and the Barcelona-based Swiss industrial designer Luki Huber. In this item, which resembles a can of caviar, spherical melon caviar was served in elBulli as an ironic little joke.

A piece made from hornbeam wood for pressing and shaping sandwiches while they are still in the pan.

One side has a regular pattern for even pressing and the other is marked in relief to imprint the triangular division of the sandwich.

Roca on Wheels aims to rescue the dessert carts from the disuse to which they have been consigned by the contemporary kitchen. It is an interpretation of the Roca brothers' sweet cuisine, a wacky cart, straight from the fantastic world of the imagination.

The Minipimer hand blender is more than 50 years old. This practically indispensable cooking utensil was invented by Gabriel Lluelles for the Spanish company Pimer which later merged with Braun. It was the first hand-held blender designed and made in Spain. Its elegant and compact design were totally new. It weighed just two pounds and replaced previous models which weighed more than six and a half pounds. Millions of them were sold.