Merimasku, Finland

This is one of the least photographed Futuros so it is always fun to see new photos, particularly when they give a new perspective.

These two photos are by Eimi_S who posted them to her blog here recently. Looks like the photos were taken 050722 assuming Google Translate is doing a good job and of course that is not always the case with the Scandinavian languages.

Our friend and fellow Futuro enthusiast Yves Buysse (@prefab_and_more) is always coming up with something new and here we have a photo of this Futuro in the 1970’s during its time in Turku that we have not seen before. As always Yves thanks for sharing your finds!

This Futuro is one of the lesser photographed units and also one of the most difficult to find. However Rita Maria (aka @spacerita on Instagram) is nothing if not determined in tracking down and photographing Futuros and, where many would have fallen by the wayside, Rita persevered and eventually found the unit and was able to photograph it.

Rita tells the story this way»

«The exact location was unknown but the area code was somewhat given. One beautiful June morning, I drove a few hours towar

It is always great to see the Futuro receive recognition for its historical and architectural significance and an article published on the website rannikkoseutu.fi recently reported on one such example.

The article tells us that the Finnish Heritage Agency made a small grant (€5000) to cover some renovation costs for this Futuro. The article is behind a paywall so we were unable to access much more than the headline but we were able to get a little more information from Futuro historian Marko H

Turun Ylioppilaskyläsäätiö, the Turku Student Village Foundation, recently posted this photo to their Instagram account.

According to Google Translate the photos description reads as follows:

«Treasures from the archives: TYS collection operations center for the work in 1969-1970, designed by architect Matti Suuronen Futuro house, Which was Placed in the student houses in the foreground .. The Foundation’s own premises was completed in the summer of 1970 and then the «UFO» was rented an office

Though we were almost certain the Futuro featured in the music video U.F.K. added to this page 021516 was the Merimasku Futuro at the time we could not confirm this for sure. This week Marko Home emailed us to confirm that the video did indeed feature the Merimasku Futuro. Thanks Marko.

The video below is U.F.K., a short film by Jussi Vesanto and Juha-Pekka Mikkola, which features music by the Atomic Blast. A Futuro House is featured which first appears 3:43 minutes into the film.

Given the Finnish origin of the film and the appearance of the Futuro this is almost certainly a film shot at Merimasku. Though the steps do not appear to be blue as seen in other photos which might cast a little doubt on that assumption there is certainly no resemblance between the Futuro in the fil

The photo below is one of the few we have seen of this Futuro during its time in Turku and it is without a doubt the best. The photo was taken 051470 by C.J. Gardberg and it can be found on the website museot.finna.fi. It is displayed here under CC BY-ND 4.0 license. Our thanks to Yves who came across this and sent us a link.

Many of the documented remaining Futuros are in a poor condition and, for us at least, it is always excellent news when we hear of plans being made to restore a Futuro.

On 101715 Marko Home, co-editor with Mike Taanila of the book Futuro: Tomorrow’s House from Yesterday, visited the Merimasku Futuro with Sami Supply who was on the team that carried out the conservation of Futuro #000 (Rotterdam), supervised the conservation work on Futuro #001 (WeeGee) and is probable the world’s leading Futuro

We have not come across many photos of this Futuro so it is great to be able to add a recent one. This photo was taken by Hannu Suominen in February 2014 (after some of the trees around the Futuro had been cleared). The condition of the Futuro appears to be very similar to that seen in earlier photos. Our thanks to Hannu for allowing us to display his photo here.

It is always interesting to us to see how some Futuros appear everywhere online, feature in countless photos and on a multitude of web pages while others are eerily absent from the web almost as if they are hiding. Of course it may be precisely that, a form of hiding; we imagine a Futuro draws a significant number of travelers trying to catch a glimpse and so perhaps for simple, and understandable, privacy reasons some owners try to keep information to a minimum. Whatever the reasons this Futuro