Today’s Designer Desire focuses on Finnish architect, Matti Suuronen (1933–2013). However, please forgive me for focussing on one of his designs in particular, the Futuro. You see, there’s a very local twist to its story, an example of the building was actually built here in Todmorden!
2018 sees the 50th anniversary of the Futuro. It was the start of the architect’s ‘Casa Finlandia’ series which also included the CF-100/200 ‘huoltoasema’ or service station (1969), CF-10 ‘kioski’ / kiosk (1970) and CF40/45 Venturo (1971). The numbers after the names refer to the structures’ square metreage.
The Futuro, which measures 26 feet in diameter, was launched publicly in March 1968 and went on to be displayed the following year at the Finnfocus Export Fair in London. The reinforced plastic Futuro was initially designed to be an alpine cabin or holiday home (snow would simply slide off the curved structure). It was lightweight and consisted of modular pieces that could be easily assembled and airlifted into place (see photos!).
The one and only Todmorden example was manufactured by Waterside Plastics in its Waterside Mill factory – a 1-minute stroll from our house. The company, previously Fielden Brothers, was a textile mill until it turned its efforts to plastics manufacture in 1960. Apparently the cabin was used for a few years as Waterside Plastics offices and then became a visitor information centre in town (in the grounds of the recently demolished Abraham Omerod medical centre) until it ended up in the Lake District. No one seems to know its fate after that. The photos on the first 4 rows of the picture collage at the top show the Tod Futuro.
96 Futuros were produced in total (half in Finland and the other half in various other countries), but it’s believed that only around 30 still survive… in various stages of condition. They had a short production run due to rising costs brought about by the oil crisis in the early 70s. In 2017, one came up for sale in New Zealand with a price tag of $400,000 NZD (around £205,000). This blog post goes into details about where many of the survivors are located.
Only 19 examples of Matti Suuronen’s Venturo (above) were ever made
The CF-100/200 service station or ‘huoltoasema’ (above) designed by Matti Suuronen
In 2003, a (very pricey) book was published entitled, Futuro: Tomorrow’s House from Yesterday. It includes a half-hour documentary on the cabin, the trailer to which is included in our playlist below.
An exhibition begins next month (6 June 2018 to 17 February 2019) at the Espoo Museum of Modern Art which stars the Casa Finlandia range along with other futuristic architecture of the past.
Additional image credits:
Cottage Cheese Vintage | Flickr | Futuro House
Inexhibit | Suomitour | Venturo House