For a start, yeah, kiosk is one of those short words with a funny, yet easy to memorise spelling, but how about its meaning?
While the term kiosk entered English language from French kiosque, the word made its way in European vocabulary through Turkish koshk ‘pavilion, summer house,’ deriving from Persian kushk ‘palace, villa; pavilion, portico.’
Yes, kiosks – as summer garden pavilions – were quite popular in Persia, to be later adopted by the Ottoman Empire architects and to become a relatively common sight in the Balkan states from the 13th century onwards.
But when it comes to Western Europe, the summer pavilion was introduced in only the 17th century, with the term first recorded in use by the famous armchair traveller Samuel Purchas in His Pilgrimage from 1625, quoting the journal The Grand Signiors Serraglio: Written by Master Robert Withers on his impressions from the Palace of the Ottoman Sultan: “Some [Rooms] also upon the Sea side, which are called Kiosks, that is Rooms of fair prospect, or (as we term them) banqueting Houses, into which the King often goes …. for his recreation.”
A century later, kiosks were fairly common in public parks across the Ottoman Empire and often drinks were served, as recorded in 1717 by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, a wife of British ambassador in the Ottoman Empire, writing on her impressions from a visit to the Gardens in Istanbul: “In the public Gardens there are public chiosks where people go..and drink their Coffée, sherbet, etc.”
One of the first European monarchs to commission the building of kiosks was Stanisław Leszczyński, king of Poland and father-in-law of Louis XV, based on his memories of his captivity in Turkey. These kiosks initially used as garden pavilions serving coffee and beverages, were later decorating most European gardens, parks and high streets.
In mid 1850s, the French Messageries Hachette agency obtained the exclusive right to open kiosks to sell books and newspapers on railway stations, to newspapers generating more turnover by 1865, the year when street newsstands were introduced in Britain and defined in a Daily Telegraph’s publication from 5th December as: “A ‘kiosk’—i.e., a place for the sale of newspapers.”
And the modern sense of the term was influenced by the introduction of the iconic British red telephone kiosk, with its mass influence reported by the Daily Mail on 25 July 1928: “It is expected that nearly 500,000 new lines will be laid, several thousand new kiosks erected, and several hundred telephones fixed at rural railway stations.”
The first self-service, interactive kiosk was developed in 1977 at the University of Illinois, designed to provide campus information and attracting more than 30,000 people only during the first six weeks of its operation. Followed by the first kiosk to be connected up to the Internet, displayed at the 1991 Computer Dealers’ Exhibition with its main use to locate children who had gone missing.
During the first years of the current millennium, interactive kiosks started popping up everywhere to provide a wealth of information to visitors, along with services, and today, yeah, there is a kiosk to answer pretty much any need.
