Homes up until the 1940s and 1950s employed designs where each function had its own separate room. The kitchen would be a separate room, living room a separate room, dining room a separate room, and so on.
This is not to imply that there was no traffic flow in these rooms. Kitchens could have multiple doorways—but again that is the operative word, “doorways.”
Post-War Open Floor Plans
After World War II, it became possible for ordinary homeowners to have houses with open floor plans. In the most common scenario, there would be one large open space encompassing the kitchen, family room, and dining room. While many of us are accustomed to this arrangement nowadays, this was a revelation then. No longer was cooking a tedious function to get out of the way simply to provide sustenance to the family. Now, cooking became a social function so that mom could cook, Junior could construct his model airplane on the kitchen table, and Pop would read his newspaper before the fire in the family room.Also, improvements in structural materials made open floor plans easier to achieve. Stronger and more compact structural beams, such as the micro laminated beam, made it easier to create open floor plans.
Today, open floor plans are as common as garages and basement media rooms. In fact, many designers are turning back to the earlier style of cellularized rooms to achieve more of a retro feel.
