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News • Helsinki • Finland • 2012-05-11

Futuro 2012 – A Space Age Home Has Landed in Espoo

The WeeGee Exhibition Centre has acquired the first ever mass-produced Futuro house (no. 001), which was owned by Matti Kuusla from summer 1968 to autumn 2011 and located in Hirvensalmi.

The Futuro, exposed to the elements for over 40 years, will first be carefully restored. Later, in May 2012, it will be exhibited in the WeeGee yard.

The Futuro is a plastic house designed by architect Matti Suuronen. Elliptical in shape, the house captures the experimental forms, new materials and optimistic ideas of the space-age architecture and design of the late 1960s.

First launched in 1968, the house made headlines in Finland and abroad. It was, however, too peculiar and too expensive to break into the mass market. With the 1973 Oil Crisis tripling the price of plastic, all hopes of the Futuro ever conquering the world had to be abandoned.

Although the Futuro house was nearly forgotten, from the 1990s on it has been given a new life, not only as a 1960s space-age icon but also as a work of art gaining exposure in the international art world.

Futuro will be exhibited in the WeeGee yard 8 May – 16 September 2012.

Related program includes screenings of the Mika Taanila-directed film Futuro – A New Stance For Tomorrow (1998), small exhibition featuring the utopian world of Futuro in co-operation with the young students from Arkki, School of Architecture for Children and Youth, hosted by The Ilme Gallery in EMMA, and speeches by Futuro specialists.

The exhibition is organised by the WeeGee Exhibition Centre.

More information

Marko Home

Producer

Exhibition Center WeeGee

Tel. +358 40 556 0546

marko.home@espoo.fi

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