Showroom

Gaggenau

German kitchen appliances built to professional culinary standards. Ovens, cooktops, and refrigeration.

Gaggenau's New York showroom is on the seventh floor of the Architects and Designers Building at 150 East 58th Street, which sets the terms of the visit before the appliances do. The building is a stack of kitchen and bath showrooms, so a morning there covers Gaggenau and its competitors on the same trip.

What is on the floor is the range, and the point is that it is live. The cooktops light, the ovens open and run, the coffee machine is plumbed and will make a coffee to a setting. Wine climate cabinets are shown at temperature. The controls are the reason to handle rather than read: Gaggenau's solid stainless knobs and door actions are heavier than the market and that weight is either the argument for the brand or the objection to it, depending on the client, and it cannot be settled from a specification sheet.

The showroom is open to the public Monday to Friday from 9 to 5, and Gaggenau's own guidance is that an appointment is well advised rather than required. In practice a designer bringing a client should book, because the demonstrations need somebody to run them.

What a designer goes for is the fit, and a live floor is the only place to get it. Cutout dimensions, door swing clearance, the service position behind each unit and the ventilation the cooktop actually needs are all checkable against a drawing while somebody who installs them is standing there. Take the kitchen elevation to the appointment and leave with the cutouts confirmed rather than assumed.