Like something straight of a 1970s science-fiction film, the FUTURO design house with its flying-saucer logo has become something of an icon and a symbol of 1960s utopias.
Like something straight of a 1970s science-fiction film, the FUTURO design house with its flying-saucer logo has become something of an icon and a symbol of 1960s utopias.
Finnish designer Matti Suuronen declares himself surprised by the resurgence of interest amidst younger generations in his prefabricated, moveable buildings, but his 1968 designed capsule has indeed retained all of its evocative power to make young and old alike dream...Originally conceived of as ski accommodation, transportable by lorry or helicopter and installed within just a few days, the object was rapidly put to a very wide variety of uses and proved itself able to adapt to a multitude of landscapes and geographical settings. In Europe, the Swiss air force bought several FUTURO houses to lodge its technicians in remote radar stations, and the Soviet government purchased some to use during the Olympic Games.. About several hundred FUTURO houses were manufactured, of which there survive around 60 in various parts of the world and in different states of repair or disrepair.
Three metres high and eight meters in diameter, FUTURO has a hatch-door at its base, opening downwards as with a private jet. There’s a large central space, a furnished bedroom, a kitchenette and a bathroom. suuronen’s aim was to radically reduce the cost of accommodation through the use of plastic and prefabrication, in keeping with the revolutionary spirt of 1968.
The 1973 oil crisis, which sent the price of plastic through the roof, sounded the death knell for FUTURO in 1978, and it joined the likes of the Pantheon in the realm of design icons.Now much prized by collectors, FUTURO House is one of the symbols of the economic boom and the optimism of the 1960s: a dose of utopia and a dream of new ways of living and the conquest of space.
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