Saint-Ouen, France

We came across this photo the other day on Instagram; its a photo of this Futuro during its CNIT days we had not seen before.

The photo was posted to Instagram by as.tu.deja.oublie.1950.70 and the original post can be found here.

This short French TV clip titled «L’anticipation selon les Bogdanoff» or, according to Google, «Anticipation according to the Bogdanoffs» dates from 1979 and was filmed at this Futuro during the time it spent outside the CNIT (Centre Des Nouvelles Industries Et Technologies) in La Défense in Paris, France.
The video clip can be found on ina.fr which, according to Wikipedia, is a «repository of all French radio and television audiovisual archives». Our thanks to Clément Cividino who sent us the l

It seems that the video we added to this page back on 120321 that we found so strange was actually inspired by a 1981 French Film titled La Soupe aux Choux (or The Cabbage Soup).

Our thanks to all of you who contacted us with this information; Franz, Achim and Yves were the first but there were quite a few others so thank you all!

The Futuro House has inspired all manner of creativity; paintings, drawings and videos to name a few, and they have ranged from the traditional to the strange and bizarre.

this little bit of video posted to Instagram by @marchedauphine definitely falls towards the stranger end of the scale. We do not really «get» the story; perhaps you will!

We came across this very cool old photo of this Futuro back in its CNIT days on the Facebook page The Vault of the Atomic Space Age.

The photo provides a very good look at the two entrances to this Futuro and in particular the positioning of those entrances which is notable in that it is different from the positioning of the entrances in the Futuro as it is today where they are located almost opposite each other; a great illustration of the interchangeability of the shell segments of a Futuro.

These two vintage images show this Futuro as it appeared on 092474 and 100174 respectively outside the CNIT (Centre Des Nouvelles Industries Et Technologies) in La Défense in Paris, France. At the time the CNIT was hosting the 1974 SICOB (Salon des industries et du commerce de bureau — Office Industries and Commerce Fair) trade fair. The images are managed by Getty Images; the originals can be found here and here. And, bringing us right up to date, this short video clip was posted to Instagram 0

This video contains a couple of seconds of footage that shows this Futuro back in it’s CNIT days at around 5:28 into the video. The video is titled «Les batailles de l’informatique 1978 Part-1» («The Battles of Computing» according to Google Translate) and was added to Youtube way back on 060810 by RetroC0mputing. Almost certainly the appearance of the Futuro is completely incidental to subject of the video.

Several Futuros have served as a backdrop for fashion shoots. Here we find Farah Slimani using this Futuro as a backdrop for a shoot titled «Vintage From The Future».

It is not unusual for a Futuro to feature as a backdrop for fashion or art shoots and videos and this December 2018 video, «L’instant de … Lucillia Chenel» or «The moment of … Lucillia Chenel», from madame.lefigaro.fr is yet another example. In this case the video’s focus is actually a watch but this Futuro features prominently in the video as a backdrop.

French breakfast TV show Télématin featured a tour of the Marché Dauphin with furniture and objets d’art expert François Lachaud in a segment broadcast 091918. The Futuro can be seen just briefly 3:46 into the video.

PhilexFrance was a series of philately exhibitions held in France in 1982, 1989 and 1999. PhilexFrance82 was held at the CNIT (Centre Des Nouvelles Industries Et Technologies) in La Défense in Paris, France.

A number of first day covers and other philately related items associated with PhilexFrance82 featured this Futuro which was located outside the CNIT at the time and we recently added several such items to our collection of «Things Futuro». The items below are (from top to bottom):

A Repub

We recently added a copy of CNIT Ou Les Temps Modernes to our collection of «Things Futuro». The book contains a couple of nice photos of this Futuro during its time outside the CNIT.

We particularly like the aerial view of the CNIT in which the Futuro is just visible lower left.

Yves Buysse recently sent us a couple of interesting links. One was to the photo seen below; in the photo the Futuro is visible center right in the usually seen location in front of the CNIT. The photo is by co1nco1n and the original can be found on Flickr here.

The second link was to the video below. The Futuro appears at 1:02. This footage, dated 101678, is very interesting in that the Futuro is not seen in its normal location immediately in front of the CNIT.

We came a cross a couple of items relating to this Futuro over the last couple of weeks.

The first, the video below, which includes a short clip of this Futuro, was posted to Instagram 040817 by maxwellmodern. The second was the photo below which was recently posted to Instagram by retroamerican_store, at a first glance it has a kind of «creature» look to it.

This vintage photo was posted to Instagram 101916 by materielsupply. We had not seen this particular photo before but is very similar to this photo. Based on the state of the construction of the tower in the background the two photos were clearly taken around the same time in 1972.

This Futuro has been listed for sale on the website Architecture De Collection. It is listed at €130,000. The listing includes a very brief and generic history along with this series of photos which document the Futuros current condition (which is excellent).

We are not rich folks by any stretch of the imagination and we rarely feel any need for more in our life than we have, except of course when a Futuro comes to market; as always at times like these we are really hoping for a lottery win!

We recently came across a couple of photos relating to this Futuro. The first appeared on Instagram and was by retroamerican_store; it features none other than the awesome Yoda.

Interestingly this photo also highlighted an interesting feature we had not noticed before (though looking back at other photos we should have).

In addition to the standard entrance door/steps there is also a second means of closing the entrance so the Futuro can be secured while the steps remain in the lowered positio

This week we added another postcard showing this Futuro back in its «CNIT days» to our collection of «Things Futuro». In this case you do need extremely good eyes or a magnifying glass to actually see the Futuro. The CNIT is left center of the postcard with the Futuro just visible to the right of the CNIT. The second image below is a closer view of this area of the postcard where the Futuro is a little clearer.

This past week we added another postcard featuring this Futuro during its time located outside the CNIT (Centre Des Nouvelles Industries Et Technologies) in La Défense in Paris, France to our collection. Interestingly the image is the one that featured on the multi-view postcard we added back in July.

There is a saying that sums up our clearly poor observation skills; couldn’t see the forest for the trees».

Shortly after we published the 070415 update to this page Yves Buysse contacted me and pointed out that in one of the four Jean Ribière photos of the Futuro (the second one) during its time at the CNIT we added 070415 you could clearly see that the Futuro had two door sections.

Given the «modular» construction of the Futuro it seems likely that at the original time of purchase a client c

A few weeks ago we acquired a couple of limited edition prints (from original negatives) of two Jean Ribière shots of this Futuro as it appeared outside the CNIT (Centre Des Nouvelles Industries Et Technologies) in La Défense in Paris, France in 1972.

This week we were able to acquire this additional set of four photos also by Jean Ribière. As with the earlier prints these are certified and signed by the Fond Jean Ribière and the Clement Cividino Gallery.

The photos are large format prints on

Renowned French photographer Jean Ribière was national vice president of the Association Nationale des Journalistes Reporters Photographes et Cinéastes (National Association of Journalists Reporters Photographers and Filmmakers) now known as FreeLens. After his passing in 1989 an archive of 1000’s of negatives, prints and other documents passed to his daughter Helen Tabes. That archive is now managed by the Fond Jean Ribière.

We were recently able to add a couple of great photos from the Fond J

So this is an update for those who are really into the minutia of Futuro history. Yves Buysse emailed us about a few Futuro things this week. One of the things he told us about was that this Futuro had actually been repositioned during its time at the CNIT. This is clear from a pair of postcards; both of these postcards are in our collection but we had never noticed this. Thanks for pointing it out Yves.

The photographs below clearly show that the orientation of the Futuro changed while it was

There have been a number of music videos that used a Futuro House in some way. The latest we have come across is the video for the track Polonia from French trio Cheveu’s third album BUM which features the Saint-Ouen Futuro in several places. We particularly like the lighting effects that can be seen starting at about 2:31 and again around 5:14.

Today we were able to add another postcard to our collection. This one shows the Futuro outside the CNIT (Centre Des Nouvelles Industries Et Technologies) with a sea of flowers in the foreground.

The move of the Futuro to the Marché Dauphine has prompted a great many articles and photos to be published on the web. Among the items posted during the last week or so are these two videos. The first is a very cool «time lapse» video showing the Futuro being re-assembled at the Marché Dauphine; the second has some cool footage but with a commentary in French so I cannot say whether the commentary is informative or not.

We came across three great photos of this Futuro this week. The first photo came up in a Google Image search; the url led to Scoop.it but we could never actually find the page the photo was displayed on so we are not able to credit the photographer but we love the photo. If this is your work please let us know so we can credit you for this awesome photo. The other two photos, one an exterior shot and one an interior shot, are displayed here courtesy of Velvet Galerie.

We were able to add this postcard to our collection today.

Ben from Velvet Galerie has confirmed to me that the move to the Marché Dauphine as a permanent one so I have updated the location onfo on this page.

The French Futuro has been moved to a new location at the Marché Dauphine in the northern suburbs of Paris [134 Rue des Rosiers, 93400 Saint-Ouen, 01 40 12 14 68]. Information about this move can be found on the Velvet Galerie website; our thanks to Ben at Velvet Galerie who dropped us an email letting us know about the move.

We are not entirely sure (as is often the case we are in the hands of Google Translate since most of the information we can find on this is in French) but while the Futuro

The French Futuro is now owned by a private collector. On the website maison-futuro.com (French | Google Translate to English here) we find the following statement:

«Aujourd’hui propriété d’un collectionneur passionné, ce dernier est bien décide à lui offrir une retraite méritée.»

Which according to Google Translate reads something like this:

«Now owned by a passionate collector, it is decided to give him a well-deserved retirement.»

We learn more about the Futuro and it’s history from a pdf

Pretty much all of the information and history we have been able to find regarding this Futuro comes from the video shown below; there does not seem to be anything else out there except the very recent information about its featuring at an exhibition in October 2011.

The Futuro «landed» at the Center of New Industries and Technologies or CNIT in La Défense, Paris, France in 1968. Looking at the photo below, from FuturoHouse.com, it seems the Futuro functioned as some sort of tearoom or cafeteri