The Karuselli chair and other classics in Design Museum
Yrjö Kukkapuro’s furniture and other works including light fittings and spatial work are shown until April 6 at the Design Museum in Helsinki.
The main exhibition in early spring 2008 at the Design Museum is titled “Yrjö Kukkapuro – Designer” presenting the versatile career of the Finnish designer and interior architect Yrjö Kukkapuro from his early works in 1956 to his most recent designs in 2007.
Yrjö Kukkapuro’s furniture and other works including light fittings and spatial work are shown until April 6 at the Design Museum in Helsinki.
The interior architect Yrjö Kukkapuro is internationally known for his ingeniously designed chairs; Karuselli from 1965 is his most widely known chair design.
Yrjö Kukkapuro was born in Vyborg (Viipuri) in 1933. The family moved from there to Imatra in Southeast Finland, where Kukkapuro spent his youth. He dreamed of becoming a painter but finally went to study furniture design at the Institute of Applied Art in Helsinki.
Moderno from the year 1957 was his first successful furniture collection – still in production. In the 1970s Kukkapuro turned to strict minimalism and rejected plastic materials in his designs. He created e.g. two chair classics Remmi and the Fysio office chair, which has won several international awards.
The period of postmodernism in the 1980s brought back colours and decorative forms into his furniture – a good example is the Sirkus office chair.
The 1990s introduced ecological challenge and a new visual image, which was shown in the use of prints and abstract designs with which Kukkapuro decorated the plywood backrests and seats of his chairs; birch plywood had become the main material in his chairs as early as in the 1970s.
Yrjö Kukkapuro was working as a design expert for a UNESCO bamboo project at the end of the 20th century. As a result of this project he designed a series of bamboo furniture of glued bamboo laminate for the domestic China market in 2004. The material is extremely durable and environmentally friendly. The furniture is now on show for the first time in Europe.
Throughout Kukkapuro’s career his ideal has been the human body and its law-like regularities. Now the exhibition visitors may test some of the chairs on show and convince themselves of their ergonomic design.
Design Museum, Korkeavuorenkatu 23, tel. (09) 622 0540
Open: Tue 11–20, Wed–Sun 11–18
Admission fee: 7 EUR (adults), children and Helsinki Card holders free
Links:
Text : Pirjo Kauppinen / Helsinki Expert
Photo: The Karuselli chair (1965), photo by Rauno Träskelin
Ateneum art museum (380 308)
