The French designer and architect Le Corbusier once described a house as a machine for living in, and a kitchen as a laboratory. Up to the 19th century, the kitchen was the centre of the household for ordinary families. People used a kitchen as their main living room. As the 20th century progressed the dining room became an important space for eating and entertaining, so the kitchen became a place for cooking and chores. Living styles have changed again and kitchens have regained a 'cultural' space as the place where we eat and entertain. Open plan and kitchen-dining rooms are favoured ways of using domestic space. If we live and entertain in our kitchens, then how our kitchen 'looks' becomes important. It shows off out taste and interests. Kitchen design is now a vital part of the interior design industry, and people aim for many different styles for their kitchens, varying from rustic bliss to high tech, from American diner to Shaker simplicity.

The kitchen is a space where many products jostle for position: kettles, juicers, toasters, blenders, wine racks, pans, rubbish bins, can crushers, can openers, vacuums. Buying a toaster is not just a matter of choosing something that will toast bread efficiently, but also a style and space choice. Toasters that toast up to six slices at a time are time saving, but will take up far more space than one which can does only two at a time.

Designing a toaster involves solutions to style and practical problems. A toaster will get very hot if used for a long time with the heat transferring away from the element into the toaster walls, potentially burning the user. Coolwall toasters have an interior and exterior wall with a gap in-between to prevent the outer wall becoming too hot. Bread does not come in one size, so a toaster has to be able to cope with a variety of size of slice. Not all bread toasts at the same rate, and people have different preferences, some liking a light toasting, and some preferring very dark toast. Toasters now have a timing mechanism so you can select how long to leave your bread in before it gets to the colour of toast that you like best.

Eating habits constantly change. The sandwich is now a very popular way of eating, with toasted sandwiches providing a variation, particularly with fillings that respond to heat, such as cheese or tomatoes. More sophisticated toasters can now offer a toasted sandwich facility to add to the sophistication of the machine.

This electric toaster is manually operated. It is metal so would have been hot to touch after use.

The toaster is basically a rectangular box with two side flaps that can be pulled down by moving a lever on the shorter side of the box. The side flaps are made out of thin metal rods so that the bread inside the toaster can be seen. Inside the box is an element that would be heated by electricity. The heating elements comprise a thin metal wire that became red hot, and so toasted the bread. The bread was sandwiched inside the flaps, with a second interior set of rods preventing it from falling against the heater.

As bread toasts it gets dry, and tiny crumbs drop off. These can create a mess if not collected, so underneath the toaster is a small metal crumb tray. Crumbs can be shaken out when the toaster is cool enough to hold.

The toaster stands on four small metal legs that would prevent the heat transferring from the hot toaster to the kitchen worktop.