EMMA Magazine 2/2012

magazine
of the Espoo
Museum of
modern art
Summer 2012

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Ted Hesselbom, director of
Röhsska Museet, the Swedish design
museum, offers a Swedish view
of Nordic design developments.
Photos / Mikael Lammgård
Which way is Nordic design
identity heading? After half
a century of international success,
designers are now questioning
and confronting traditions.
Integration &
Disintegration
Nordic Design Today
The exhibition features five leading
designers and design groups
active in fields including fashion,
furniture, lighting and glass art.
The exhibited artists are Steinunn
Sigurðardóttir from Iceland,
Harri Koskinen from Finland,
Henrik Vibskov from Denmark,
and the design groups Norway
Says from Norway and Front from Sweden.
They are the latest recipients of the prestigious
annual Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Prize
for design, which is funded by the Torsten and
Ragnar Söderberg Foundations. The prize,
awarded by the Röhsska Museum in Gothenburg,
is the world’s biggest design distinction of
its kind. The prize sum of one million Swedish
kronas is awarded each year to a designer or artisan
from the Nordic countries.
These five designers and design groups are
good ambassadors for contemporary Nordic design,
which is currently reimagining itself with
a new identity, partly in direct opposition to the,
until recently, prevailing trends of functionalism
and simplicity. They demonstrate many different
links to the spirit of the turn of the last century.
Their works include more historical references
than those of most Nordic designers of the late
twentieth century.
Norway Says
This is a Norwegian design group that could be
credited with putting Norway on the international
design map towards the end of the twentieth
century and the beginning of the twenty-first.
The group is a real embodiment of the renaissance
experienced by Scandinavian design in the
NORWAY SAYS. Magazine stand, 2008.
1990s – renaissance in the sense of a renewed
dominant focus on aesthetics and sparseness.
This stands in contrast to the spirit of the 1960s
and 70s, where steps were taken away from the
unique and the elitist in the design industry in
favour of creating items of “general good taste”
that took design to the masses. The mid-to-late
century was also a politically and socially aware
period in form and design. The minimalism of
the 1990s, on the other hand, fulfilled demands
to recapture the Scandinavian aesthetic. The
Norway Says magazine holder is a very good
example of that time. Made out of light wood
pressed into a stylised and simple form, it retains
a high degree of functionalism. When
the three members of Norway Says – Torbjørn
Anderssen, Andreas Engesvik and Espen Voll –
received the Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Prize
from the Crown Princess of Sweden, in front of
an enlarged image of a romantic Norwegian fjeld
landscape in glittering sunshine, design seemed
to be light years away from politics and the ideology
of “beautiful everyday items”.
The trends were blond wood, minimalism
and sparseness, even more so than in the work
of their precursors from earlier years. To some
extent, it was a vintage period that refined modernism
and functionalist architecture. In most
Nordic metropolises, the trend resulted in new
harbour-side districts built with a lot of glass
and balconies in an updated functionalist style.
The 1990s will probably be filed under ‘minimalism’
as regards the Nordic countries.
Norway Says is a national phenomenon (note
the choice of name, with its clear patriotic link)
with, I feel, one foot solidly in 1990s minimalism.
Always pioneering, the group took steps in
the early 2000s towards the local and popular
inspiration found in folk tales and myths – into
a new kind of national romanticism.

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Norway Says draws inspiration from the Nordic
region as a whole, and a perfect example of
this is their pendant lamp in matte metal, which
imitates the shape of the hairstyle of the Finnish
fictional figure Little My. Nordic traditions can
also be seen in their turned wood and choice of
light-coloured wood species. Despite their apparent
functionalism and modernism, they have
been among the first to adopt a more romantic approach
to history and functionalist design, going
beyond aesthetics and nostalgia. They belong to a
new generation, which has the courage to redefine
and improve upon history using digital tools.
Design Becomes Normative
The twenty-first century began with some quickly
aborted attempts to create a new futurist spirit
with laboratory-style, sterile interiors, using only
white, high-tech materials pictured in design
and fashion magazines. These were reminiscent
of the optimistic astro-futurism of the 1960s, as
pioneered by designers such as André Courrège
and the Dane Verner Panton. Around the year
2000, the tone was set by Martin Margiela, with
his painted-white clothes and store designs, and
Marcel Vanders, with his company Moooi. At the
Salone del Mobile furniture fair in Milan, almost
all the floors were white, glossy and unsullied by
human activity.
These futurist visions were abruptly interrupted
by the terrorist attacks of 11 September
2001, in which militant Arab factions razed the
New York World Trade Center in a stand against
Western dominance. In Sweden, the Scandinavian
minimalist era of the 1990s came to an end
with the government-appointed Year of Design in
2005. Before that, design had been exclusive and
the editor-in-chief of Wallpaper magazine, Tyler
Brûlé, had taken it upon himself to dictate the
prevailing trends (among other things, appointing
Stockholm as the trendy city of 1999). During
the Year of Design, it was the prime minister
and other representatives of the powers to be who
took custody of the word ‘design’ and thereby
stamped it as uninteresting and normative.
The attention of students at Konstfack University
College of Arts, Crafts and Design and
the HDK School of Design and Crafts shifted towards
handicrafts and sustainability, and some
FRONT. Horse lamp designed for Moooi, 2005.
started labelling themselves as craftsmen. There
was talk of new leftist winds, but the only thing
that happened was that the arts and crafts scene
took over the role of the trendsetter. The path
for this shift was laid by a heated debate around
diversity as the loftiest of objectives.
Year of Design in Sweden 2005
vs. WDC Helsinki 2012
A comparison between Sweden’s Year of Design
in 2005 and Helsinki’s World Design Capital status
in 2012 may be vain from a Swedish perspective.
It seems evident to me, however, that the
Year of Design came either too late or too early. I
believe it was partly conjured forth as a political
concession by authorities who hoped for more
collective efforts in design.
WDC Helsinki 2012, as I see it, comes at a
time when a new attitude towards design has already
matured. Some see design as nationalistic
and therefore exclusive and elitist, but even that
perspective seems antiquated now. It is a fact
that there are nationalist movements in Nordic
politics right now, and their existence at a high
governmental level has brought questions of cultural
heritage to the forefront for many people,
even though they are often linked with racism
and intolerance. I maintain that artisans and designers
have been frontrunners in applying cultural
heritage in a novel way, without letting it
be tainted by intolerance. If anything, their way
of relating to traditions has freed culture from
possession by powers on the far right. Suddenly
there are many of us who want to protect folk
dancing and regional costumes, while ensuring
that they have nothing to do with racism or similar
tendencies, which would have it that some
cultures are purer or better than others.
Steinunn Sigurðardóttir’s relationship with
the very special Icelandic landscape and Harri
Koskinen’s textiles are good examples of this. On
the surface, they represent modernism and simplistic
Nordic design, but their content is reflective
and inspired by folk traditions.
Twenty-First Century Romanticism
Since 2005, the new century has been filled with
ideas of reuse and sustainability. Large parts of
the development of fashion, design and handicrafts
have been characterised by historical references
to similar movements in the late 1800s.
Values have also shifted from objective good
FRONT.
Blow Away vase, 2008.
Many things which
were long under taboo
come back into fashion
and many others
strongly resemble 19 th
century eclecticism.
Ted Hesselbom on
Nordic design in the 2000s.
taste to the subjective and the individual. Interest
is drawn towards uniqueness and diversity
rather than mass production and industrial collaboration.
Working with industry was, back in
the 1960s, initially a democratic move for many
designers, a revolt against providing one-of-a-kind
beautiful items for the lucky few. The revolt of the
twenty-first century is, instead, against a design
market and design production that are seen as exclusive
and elitist. Today’s one-of-a-kind objects
are inclusive; there is no single correct way of doing
things. Movements such as do it yourself and
fashion exchanges stand for recycling and sustainability
and imply that all the different folk cultures
of the world are equally valuable. Many of
them are now represented in every Swedish city.
Since 2000, Sweden has had five official minority
languages: Finnish, meänkieli (Torne
River dialects), Sami (several languages of the
Sami people), Romany and Yiddish, which gives

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the concept of Excellent Swedish Design a whole
new set of meanings. In 2010, Sweden’s conservative
coalition gained a new vote of confidence
from the people and a new party entered parliament
with a non-foreigner-friendly agenda. The
social democrats who had dominated Swedish
politics for the entire second half of the 1900s
faced their worst ever election results. Could
that be seen as the end of the social democratic
movement, a part of the great social experiment
of the twentieth century? To what extent are
fashion, design and crafts affected by politics?
Ugly Cute, with a cross-section of modernism
in their furniture and interior designs, probably
come close to the answer. Their version of Bruno
Mathsson’s best-known armchair, Eva, is one of
my favourite items for illustrating today’s design
when I take guided tours around the museum.
Their version is an exact copy in terms of the
shape (i.e. the function, in line with Mathsson’s
philosophy), but the materials are cheap plastic
strips in uncoordinated colour combinations
placed over MDF, a cheap and raw recycled
material. In an almost pedagogical way, they
demonstrate that the twentieth-century forms
created strictly based on function are actually
nothing more than aesthetics – at least not for a
twenty-first-century viewer.
Front
In the international arena, Swedish design is
dominated by the design group Front. The group
graduated from Konstfack University College
of Arts, Crafts and Design in 2004 as a female
quartet. By the time they won the Torsten and
Wanja Söderberg Prize at the Röhsska Museum,
they were a trio. The four founding members of
Front were Sofia Lagerkvist, Charlotte von der
Lancken, Anna Lindgren and Katja Pettersson.
They are excellent representatives of a time dependent
on and characterised by the constantly
developing tools of the Internet and digital intelligence.
I consider their investigation of the relationships
between 100 individuals and objects to
be a revolutionary step in the history of twentyfirst-century
design. The research showed that
the items to which participants were most attached
were figurative and/or in some way defective.
We often give a name to the objects of
which we are fondest, and they might include a
car with ignition problems or a porcelain deer
with a missing ear. This was the inspiration for
Front’s creation of a series of articles for the design
company Moooi: the Horse Lamp, Rabbit
Lamp and Pig Table.
Even in Swedish fashion, the dominant trends
are now hand-crafting and sustainability, but
they are redefined here as tailoring. The ‘New
Look’ created by Christian Dior in 1947 became
a role model and the exhibition ‘The Golden Age
of Couture’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum in
London came just at the right time, with its opening
in September 2007. It seems that for a while,
all Swedish distinctions in fashion and some in
design will be given to either Sandra Backlund
or Helena Hörstedt, who are probably the most
ground-breaking Swedish fashion designers of
the early 2000s. With techniques such as pleating
and knitting, they created sculptural forms that
gave a whole new dimension to wearable fashion.
They may have found their inspiration in avantgarde
Japanese fashion designers such as Issey
Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto, who in turn drew
from the tradition of the Japanese kimono and
its figure-concealing silhouette. This can be compared,
for instance, to the burqa and its concealment
of the woman’s body in the Islamic world.
Perhaps they were looking even further back, to
the Finnish designer Vuokko Nurmesniemi, who
was more of a graphic sculptor than a tailor in
creating fashion designs.
The winners of the Torsten and Wanja Söderberg
Prize in 2008 (Steinunn Sigurðardóttir
from Iceland) and 2009 (Harri Koskinen from
Finland) are interesting phenomena within the
context of the new millennium’s revolution in
design. They both refer to their local design histories.
Sigurðardóttir moved back to Iceland after
making her career in Europe and New York
over several years. She takes her inspiration
from Icelandic folk costumes and the country’s
unique volcanic landscape.
Steinunn Sigurðardóttir
Steinunn is an important representative of the
new fashion scene of the twenty-first century,
where tailoring and haute couture again started
taking over in Nordic fashion from the long-triumphant
ideals of simplicity and mass production.
What is new is that the resulting clothes
are a combination of sculptural artwork and a
high degree of usability. Function and comfort
are the Nordic heritage, but they are now linked
to international demands for quality and roman-
STEINUNN SIGURÐARDÓTTIR. International fashion design from distant Iceland.
ticising trends. Inspiration often comes from the
local and folky. Steinunn’s designs have a clear
natural romantic orientation. She gives as her
sources of inspiration phenomena such as lava,
magma and the various states of volcanic rock,
which are embodied in her pieces in pleating,
gathering and contrasts between matte black
surfaces and glossy black with in-woven glitter.
Her headpieces are, to a great extent, reminiscent
of the hat that is part of the Icelandic national
dress for women. When Steinunn exhibited
her collection at the Röhsska Museum in Gothenburg,
she gave a talk about her son, who has a
motion disability. She spoke warmly and lovingly
of how his attitude towards life made her reconsider
the fashion industry in which she worked
– an industry that often idealises a certain physical
appearance with much too little room for any
abnormalities. This provides a further dimension
to the modern, locally inspired approach to a national
cultural identity in her fashion designs.
Harri Koskinen
On the surface, Harri Koskinen may be seen
to regurgitate some of the concepts of famous
Finnish modernists such as Alvar Aalto or Kaj
Franck, but what he does is update their functionalism
with a modern aesthetic. For me, he
creates new styles out of history. He has a romanticised
relationship with Aalto and Franck,
who were both important influences in the Finnish
context in which Koskinen was brought up.

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HARRI KOSKINEN. Armless chair for
Maruni Wood Industry, 2009.
One of Koskinen’s lamps is reminiscent of the
type of TV that was probably found in his childhood
home. Exhibiting his work at the Röhsska
Museum in 2008, the placement of items was
incredibly important to him; I should know, because
I tried to move something one evening,
and he moved it right back the next day. His
TV lamp was placed in a corner in front of an
armchair pointing at the ‘television’. Their placement
in relation to one another imitated the
setup of most TV rooms throughout the Western
world in the late 1900s.
Harri Koskinen refines the Finnish tradition
and raises it to new heights by updating its design
idioms – reverently, perhaps, but still bringing it
into the digital era. I see his version of the old
streamlined minimalism as more confident and,
above all, removed from all moralisation and
insinuation. Koskinen’s style is more welcoming
for a wider public, and perhaps less idealistic as
to the ability of his contributions to change the
world. Quite simply, he has more fun and adopts
a humbler attitude towards his surroundings.
He makes use of the history of the twentieth
century, or what is these days called vintage.
Koskinen has the courage to improve upon his
esteemed predecessors, thanks – as with so many
others in his generation – to the fact that he has
harnessed the power of digital technology.
Henrik Vibskov
Henrik Vibskov is a creator of the new Nordic
identity that fits so well with the philosophies
of the founders of the Röhsska Museum in the
late nineteenth century. Vibskov was born in a
rural setting, close to the birthplace of the Danish
success story and its most famous export:
bacon and eggs. He studied at Central Saint
Martins College of Art and Design in London,
following in the footsteps of many other groundbreaking,
thought-provoking and revolutionary
fashion designers, such as Alexander McQueen
and John Galliano. His combination of such an
international context with a highly local inspiration
and creative process is what makes Vibskov
so unique. All of Vibskov’s family come from the
countryside to attend his spectacular fashion
show performances. As an example, his brother,
a bearded provincial vicar, participates in the
fashion shows as an extra.
Vibskov’s graduation collection from Saint
Martins utilised a gingham-like pattern of redand-white
pig faces, perhaps referencing the
Danish flag. His ‘Pig Suit’ is preserved at the
Designmuseum in Copenhagen. His answer as
to why he chose pigs was: “There are more pigs
in Denmark than people.” •
HENRIK VIBSKOV.
References to Demark’s abundant pig population can
be found in the work of this Danish fashion designer.
Exhibitions & Calendar
11.7.-16.9.2012
Nordic Design Today 2012
Read more page 2.
1.9.-31.10.2012
BMW Art Cars
Read more page 10.
14.11.2012-27.1.2013
The Modern Poster
– 1890-1940 British
Posters from the Pushkin
Museum Collection
British commercial, social and art posters from
the Puskin Museum collection in Moscow. The exhibition
spans poster development from Art Nouveau and
Art Déco to the classic style of the 30s.
Summer/Autumn 2012
Get More
out of Art!
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AND ENROLLMENT
Mon-Fri 9–12 am,
tel. (09) 8163 0493
also on the net:
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ACCESSIBILITY
EMMA is very accessible.
For additional information:
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info/saavutettavuus
EVENTS
Night of the Arts at
WeeGee, Thurs 23.8.2012,
16-21 pm
ESPOO Day at WeeGee,
Sat 25.8.2012, 11 am - 17 pm
S-Customer-Owner Day
Sat 6.10.2012 with S-Card
8 € (normal charge 10 €).
RESERVABLE
WORKSHOPS
For adult and
company groups
ART cocktail
Have fun making art
with a bit of inspiration
from bubbly and bites.
14.11.2012-27.1.2013
Jaume Plensa
A sculpture exhibition designed for EMMA by
the Catalonian artist, Jaume Plensa (b. 1955).
11.11.2011-17.3.2013
The World in a Box
– Assemblage by Juhani Harri
Juhani Harri’s (1939-2003) assemblages. Objects worn
by time and weather, found in flea markets, litterbins
and nature form the “palette” from which Harri builds
his nostalgic tales.
Permanently
The Saastamoinen
Foundation Art Collection
With its nearly 500 works, the Saastamoinen
Foundation Collection fills half of EMMA’s total exhibition
space. The current hanging, Red, consists primarily
of contemporary works that revel in the myriad hues
of red. They span the entire field of visual arts, from
video and photographic art to painting and sculpture.
Colour tuning!
Art+technique=design.
Design your own art car
OR
From a feather to a brush,
from a button to laughter
Enjoy the nostalgic world
of Juhani Harri’s assemblages
and creating in
the workshop. Duration
1½ hours, Price: 22 € /
person, minimum group
price 240 € + comestibles
from SIS.Deli
For children
over 4 years
CHILDREN’S
WORKSHOP party
Celebrating birthdays or
creating art with friends.
Colour tuning!
Art+technique=design.
Young car designers
create their own car.
OR
From a feather to a brush,
from a button to laughter
Duration: 1½ hours in
EMMA + meal, Price: 80 €
/ group + optional menu
8-10 € / child from SIS.Deli
RESERVABLE
GUIDEd tourS
Art Quarter,
WIRKKALA Art Quarter,
Art Hour, Art Bridge
Guided tours for children:
Children’s Hour,
Children’s Quarter
BMW Tuning
workShop
30.9.-31.10.2012
Colour your own BMW
Art Car model and so
give your personal touch
to the collective art car.
Cars mean action.
Changes possible.

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Text / Leena Joutsenniemi
photos / © bmw ag
Source / BMW Classic live/BMW Art Car Collection 1975-2010
Crazy about
beauty
and speed
Rather than collect art like other companies,
BMW has been producing unique art cars
for the last 37 years. There are now 17 of them
in the BMW Art Cars collection each one designed
and painted by a world-class artist. Six of these
art cars will be coming to Finland this autumn,
straight from the 2012 London Olympics.
The idea for the BMW art car
grew out of the world’s most famous
car race, Le Mans. Almost
every year since 1923, engine
power and indefatigable drivers
have competed against each other
in this 24 hour long and 13650
km gruelling racing circuit.
Colours have always been
important to Le Mans’ racing cars. At the beginning
they were the colours of the country they
represented, but in time this changed so the cars
sported the colours of the car make and sponsor.
But one driver, the Frenchman Hervé Poulain,
wanted more. Crazy about beauty and speed,
he dreamed of combining art with the perfect
object, the streamlined racing car. This was in
the early 1970s and, due to the oil crisis, cars,
particularly racing cars, were heavily criticised.
Something had to be done to boost their image.
Poulain asked his good friend, the sculptor
Alexander Calder to think up a design for a car.
Calder took to the idea, but the problem was to
find a suitable car. Soon the friends found another
art lover, Jochen Neerpasch, manager of
BMW Motorsport, and after a few weeks they
The first art car, designed by Alexander Caulder,
took part in the 1975 Le Mans race.

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The cars on show at EMMA
Frank Stella used a black and white square grid pattern taking inspiration from technical graph paper.
had a car, the BMW 3.0 CSL racer. Calder designed
a scale model in red, blue and yellow,
which was then copied onto the actual car at the
Munich factory. In May 1975, the car was shown
in museums in Paris and Munich, receiving its
baptism of fire at Le Mans the same year. The car
received more publicity for its colourful appearance
than its racing performance.
Dying in 1976, Alexander Calder never knew
what an original art collection he had initiated.
Such was the success of the first art car that it
was obvious the story had to continue.
The next three art cars by Frank Stella, Roy
Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol also took part in
Le Mans even though there was always the danger
that the work of art would be damaged or
destroyed in this furious contest. The most successful
of these was Andy Warhol’s which came
sixth in the 1979 race. After 1982 artists have
only worked on production-line vehicles until
2010 when the latest, a BMW M3 GT2 by Jeff
Koons, returned to compete in Le Mans. The car
was forced to drop out early on in the race due to
technical problems, but it did not stop it becoming
as popular a showpiece as all the others.
The home of the art cars collection is the BMW
Car Museum in Munich, but nearly always some
of them are on show in museums, happenings and
exhibitions elsewhere. They are moved with the
respect accorded to works of art: their engines no
longer hum as they are pushed into place. •
BMW Art Cars 1.9.-31.10.2012
The exhibition is being organised in conjunction
with BMW Finland. BMW is the main partner of
World Design Capital Helsinki 2012.
Alexander Caulder (left) and Hervé Poulain with
the model of the first art car.
Andy Warhol was the first artist to
actually paint his own art car.
Alexander Calder,
3.0 CSL, 1975
The first of the art cars possesses
the bright primary colours and
abstract form typical of the American
Alexander Calder (1898–1976),
the father of mobile sculpture.
The car proved to be the artist’s
last major work.
Frank Stella, 3.0 CSL, 1976
The American Frank Stella (born
1936) covered his art car with what
looked like graph paper which he
decorated with stencils used in
technical drawing. The black-andwhite
work looks like a technical
drawing forced into the shape of a
car. The paint jobs on both Calder’s
and Stella’s cars were carried
out by the Picasso of car painting,
Walter Maurer. The millimetre
accuracy required for Stella’s
car proved to be one of the most
demanding jobs of his life.
Finally Warhol
asked for
an air ticket.
Andy Warhol, M1, 1979
Pop Art icon Andy Warhol (1928-
1987) was the first to actually paint
the car himself. BMW was forced to
reject his first two models because,
among other reasons, paint covered
part of the windows. Finally
Warhol asked for an air ticket and
came over to Munich to paint the
car himself. He did the painting in
30 minutes; so quickly, in fact, that
the cameraman hired to document
the action never managed to get
his camera rolling.
Michael Jagamara Nelson,
M3, 1989
Michael Jagamara Nelson (born
1945) hails from the Warlpiri people
of Australia and his design for the car
is rooted in their narrative traditions
and rites as seen in their sand and
body paintings. Nelson’s paintings,
as also for the car, are patterns built
from small dots and other shapes.
The subdued colours of the Australian
outback on the car appear geometrical
in structure, yet the artist
has managed to include kangaroos
and opossums. It took two weeks of
intensive work to paint the car.
Ken Done, M3,1989
The car painted by another
Australian artist Ken Done (born
1940) brings another though entirely
different message from this
country. Done chose as his motif
the fleet and beautiful creatures of
the Great Barrier Reef, the parrot
and the parrot fish. He wished to
have the car looking like its moving
even when stationary. Done was
also the first to include the wheel
rims in his work of art.
Sandro Chia,
Renntourenwagen
(Racing touring car), 1992
One of Italy’s leading contemporary
artists Sandro Chia (born 1946)
volunteered to paint an art car. He
found it surprisingly difficult to finish
something begun by someone else.
The whole car down to the eyes
of the rear-view mirrors is a face
that is formed from numerous tiny
faces. It is difficult to avoid their
looks. According to Chia, the work
reflects those stares directed at a
striking car wherever it’s moving. •
30.9. Art Rally from 11 am to 4 pm.
For the whole family, Big cars and
small cars, real ones and toy ones.
Weekend workshops open to all
Colour tuning! Make your own
key fob in the art car spirit.
Sats 1.9., 15.9., 6.10. and 27.10,
from 2 to 4 pm.
Michael Jagamara Nelson’s car
draws its inspiration from
Aboriginal visual art rituals.

14 emma
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Text / Marko Home
Futuro and Art
The elliptical-shaped plastic Futuro
house was designed by architect
Matti Suuronen as a solution
to the practical problem
of devising a ski cabin suitable
for rough terrain that could
be easily erected and quickly
heated. Futuro was the perfect
answer. The prototype Futuro
(No. 000) functioned for many years as a skiing
cabin on a private ski slope near Kalpalinna after
which it landed up in Suuronen’s possession.
Since the 1970s there has been a Futuro 2400
metres up in the Caucasian Dombai Mountain
skiing resort that has survived these extreme
conditions remarkably well.
Despite great interest in Futuro at the turn of
the 1970s, both in Finland and abroad, it did not
fulfil its commercial expectations as it was too
unique and expensive for the mass market. Any
hopes of global conquest were finally dashed by
the oil crisis of 1973. The whole story was forgotten
until interest in Futuro was revived in
the 1990s because of its iconic space architecture
and depiction as a work of art in art circles.
Futuro and the art world finally came together
in 1972 when, for the Kassel documenta, the
German photographer Charles Wilp acquired a
Futuro for the roof of his Düsseldorf apartment
building honoured by such visitors as Andy
Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and Christo.
Artist Jussi Kivi brought Futuro into the context
of contemporary art in his cosmic installation
The Eagle Has Landed (1990) at the Radar
international environment and urban art exhibition
(28.6.–2.9.1990) in Kotka curated by the
German Norbert Weber. Weber had visited the
highly successful exhibition Unidentified Flying
Object – The UFO Phenomenon of works
by Jussi Kivi and architect Tapani Koivula at
Vanhan Galleria (1988) and asked Kivi to do
something similar for the Radar exhibition. The
Vanhan Galleria exhibition had photographs of
scale model Futuros, but for the outside exhibition
Kivi thought of showing a real Futuro. Thus
with funding by Kotka town, Matti Suuronen’s
Futuro prototype was rented for Kivi’s project.
The Eagle Has Landed installation in the
park next to Kotka town hall consisted of two
lorry containers with pictures, texts and objects
on the UFO theme, and the Futuro house inside
which Ilpo Okkonen’s UFO-themed multi-vision
work was projected. The idea behind the installation
was to show UFOs, not a traditional work
of art. In addition to Jussi Kivi, a group of UFO
fans took part in planning the exhibition under
Tapani Koivula’s leadership.
Jussi Kivi’s The Eagle Has Landed installation
did not attract the expected number of visitors,
but it did initiate the process of Futuro appearing
in exhibitions and museums. The German
artist Carsten Höller, who took part in the Radar
exhibition, remembered Kivi’s work and rented
Matti Suuronen’s prototype for the Vienna Secession
Skop exhibition in 1996. Like Kivi, Höller
used Futuro as a ready-made work of art. As a
result of Höller’s exhibition, the prototype was
acquired for the collection of Utrecht Centraal
Museum. Subsequently it has appeared in one
kind of international contemporary art happening
after another, such as the Istanbul Biennale
in 2001 and the Shanghai Biennale in
2006. In 2007, Utrecht Centraal Museum sold
the prototype to the Boijmans Van Beuningen
Museum in Rotterdam. The completely restored
prototype was first shown at the Boijmans Van
Beuningen Museum’s exhibition Constructing
Utopia (21.5.–9.10.2011) as the centrepiece of a
continuum depicting the search for the perfect
form that included prints by Albrecht Dürer. This
summer the Turkish-Armenian conceptual artist
Sarkis will use the Futuro prototype as part of his
Futuro lounge
You’ll be amazed how clever the house is!
In EMMA’s Futuro lounge you can
simply wonder or envision yourself in
a 21 st century Futuro house. On show
in the lounge is the Arkki architectural
school’s young students new
version of the house, a combination
of utopian thinking and art, and the
music video Ektroverde’s Inauguration
of a Spacebank (1998, director
Mika Taanila). And also furnishings for
the Futuro house made by visitors.
Futuro prototype in the Rotterdam Boijmans Van Beuningen
Museum exhibition Constructing Utopia in 2011. Chris Reinewald
Ballads installation (2.6.–30.9.2012) in the old
submarine wharf in Rotterdam’s docklands.
PS. Futuro also made a brief appearance in the
last Ars Fennica prize winner Anssi Kasitonni’s
video Planet of the Sexes (2011). •
Futuro No. 001 is open to the public in the courtyard
of the WeeGee Exhibition Centre from 8.5.–16.9.2012.
The WeeGee Exhibition Centre, in collaboration with the
Kamu Museum, is responsible for bringing Futuro to Espoo,
its conservation and producing the related programme.
Text / Nana Salin
The young students from Arkki
urge visitors to come with an open
mind and be prepared for surprises.
It pays to study Futuro carefully and
take your time. Even though many
things in it look crazy, you’ll be surprised
how clever the house is! •
EMMA’s Futuro lounge is open
at the WeeGee Exhibition Centre
(1 st floor) 24.3.-16.9.2012

Veranda
BMW ART CARS
1.9.-31.10.2012
video
Gallery
JUHANI HARRI
11.11.2011-17.3.2013
Agora
stairs
NORDIC DESIGN TODAY
11.7.-16.9.2012
Saastamoinen
Foundation Art Collection
RED
Passage
Salon
elevator
BMW ART CAR
1.9.-31.10.2012
EMMA Shop
Futurolounge
Ilmeworkshop
NORDIC DESIGN
TODAY
11.7.-16.9.2012
EMMA
Box 6661, FI-02070 ESPOON KAUPUNKI
WeeGee, Ahertajantie 5, Tapiola
+358 (0)9 8165 7512
www.emma.museum
open
tue, thu, fri 11–18
wed 11–20, for free 18–20
sat, sun 11–17
book a guided tour
Mon-Fri 9-12
+358 (0)9 8163 0493
www.emma.museum/en
Tickets
weegee ticket 10/8 € (the whole building
= 5 museums) visitors under 18 AND
OVER 70 are admitted free
Visit to Futuro house +2 € (all ages)
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BUSES IN ESPOO: 15, 18, 18Z
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