In 1943, Life ran a story about the Kitchen of Tomorrow exhibit presented in Toledo, Ohio. In retrospect, they may have gotten it wrong.

There are certainly a few clever ideas, as we see in the first shot of a cooking space promising to be 1/3 the size of modern stoves. The pots and pans double as serving dishes, and while we don't quite understand how one stirs the food, it certainly appears to be a clean way to cook.
But most of the plans focus on integration. You know, stick a waffle iron and a toaster right into the counter top—which makes sense until you realize that those appliances just eat into drawer space or raise the cooking surface by several inches.

Still, I could look at future concepts from the 1940s all day long. See lots more shots by hitting the links. [Dwell and Paleo-Future via bbGadgets]

Send an email to Mark Wilson, the author of this post, at mark@gizmodo.com.