Futuro houses presented at Espoo's WeeGee

Fifty years ago, Dr Jaakko Hiidenkari asked his old schoolmate, architect Matti Suuronen, to design a skiing lodge that was suitable for rough terrain and differed from the traditional style.

Three years of development work resulted in the elliptical, plastic Futuro house, which captures the experimental forms, new materials and optimistic ideas of the space-age architecture and design of the late 1960s. The WeeGee Exhibition Centre museum shop space that is named after Suuronen will showcase the Futuro World exhibition, which presents the house and its 50-year spread around the globe in photographs, captions and map graphics.

The visual look and architecture of the exhibition were created by three students from Aalto University's Degree Programme in Interior Architecture and Furniture Design: Kaisa Kantokorpi, Henna Palonen and Anna-Riikka Nuutinen.

'Futuro researcher Marko Home introduced us to the history of Futuro, and then we developed the exhibition concept. The partners we selected were LönnBerg Oy from Vantaa and Kera Group Oy from Lahti.

The exhibition features photos of nearly 50 Futuro houses from all corners of the world. There are also interior photos of some houses, illustrating their different decoration styles. 

'The Ball Chair designed by Eero Aarnio, which we chose for the exhibition space, was presented in London when Futuro was first introduced,' reveals Anna-Riikka Nuutinen.

'The entire project was very rewarding for us as designers.'

The Futuro World exhibition will be open to the public at WeeGee Exhibition Centre until 31 January 2016.

Further information about the exhibition here

Photos Heidi Hanna Karhu