The WeeGee Exhibition Centre (Weiling & Göös Printing House)
- Espoo
- 1967
Futuro House is a prefabricated plastic residential building that was designed by architect Matti Suuronen for the plastic ware company Polykem in 1968. Futuro was part of Matti Suuronen’s plastic house series Casa Finlandia that he designed for Polykem. The mass production of Casa Finlandia houses never really succeeded. The oil crisis in 1973 effected dramatically to the prise of plastic and cut short the plans of mass production. The first prototypes of the Futuro were produced in 1968. One of them is today part of the museum collection of the WeeGee Exhibition Centre in Espoo. It was restored in 2012 and is open for public in the summertime.
The original colours for the ellipse-shaped Futuro were pale blue, white and yellow. The shape of the house was copied to the shape of windows, handgrips etc. The prefabricated building was designed so that it could be easy to put together. Polykem produced 20 Futuros in 1968–1970. Licence for the production was sold to 25 countries, but only approximately ten licences lead to actual production. The principal materials of the house are fibreglass-reinforced polyester plastic and polyurethane, which function as a supporting structure and thermal insulation. The building and its interiors weigh approximately 2500 kg.
Futuro was designed so that it could be moved in one piece on air, signalling the 1960s optimistic perspectives on technology and future lifestyle.