Quote of Note | Cathy Kaufman

“The Wrights preached practicality over the ‘total absurdity of the Old Dream,’ and no place was riper for implementing their vision than ‘The Vanishing Dining Room.’ Conceding that, to ‘a reader accustomed to a room devoted only to dining, with fixed and formal furniture, we may seem to have done frightening and unstabilizing things,’ the Wrights’ iconoclastic solutions included placing the dining table on lockable casters, so that it could be rolled next to the sink for clearing after the meal; using disposable paper plates and cups to eliminate part of the dishwashing chores, upholstering chairs in plasticized materials, and streamlining meals to limit the number of dishes and utensils needed—no more soup to open dinner, followed by salad, a garnished roast, and dessert; the one-dish, freezer-to-oven-to-table-casserole was king.