105fixed into concretefoundationpads so an unevenor
sloping surface was not a problem. Entrance was via
a set of steps that were retractable with the push of a
button from inside. (Access from outside was effected
by a good-old-fashioned key and garage door-type
handle.) The smooth surfaces and tightly sealed joints
rendered the Futuro resistant to water, air, dust or
sand and, with the stair retracted, it was virtually
impregnable.^4 Smooth surfaces meant that upkeep was
minimal. A range of colours was available that were
through-dyed, lasting as long as the Futuro did itself.
Even in the snowy wastes of Finland the house could
be heated to a comfortable temperature in 30 minutes.
Architectural plans show a sort of pie-chart with
varying configurations. The original Futuro had no
partitions except for the kitchen and bathroom areas.
A central column supported a barbecue for those
popular fondue parties. The whole thing resembled
the then-fashionable conversation pits. Streamlined
plastic recliners positioned round the periphery
converted easily into beds. Subsequent versions
allowed for a separate bedroom, sometimes two. At a
pinch it could sleep eight, according to promotional
material. The two-bedroom arrangement came at
the expense of the kitchen, however, which might be
smaller than the bathroom.
The success of this prototype led in 1968 to the
granting of mass-production rights to Polykem Ltd,
Helsinki, a firm that had specialised in plastic roof
domes and neon signs. As well as Futuro houses,
Polykem went on to manufacture a range of small-
scale, mass-producible dwellings under the label of
Casa Finlandia.
The Futuro’s initial success, it must be said,
owed less to practical housing considerations than
to its obvious sci-fi connotations. For a world that
had been transfixed by UFO sightings, the Russian
satellite, Sputnik, in 1957 and then the 1969 moon-
landing, not to mention Star Trek and the Jetsons who
zoomed across the skies on children’s television,
the resemblance of the Futuro to a flying saucer
was irresistible. Indeed ever since cinema pioneer
Georges Méliès’ Le Voyage dans la lune (1902),
space travel had captured the public imagination.
Nonetheless, Suuronen denied intentional space-
odyssey connotations. Rather, he saw the Futuro in the
context of experimental mass-production housing like
Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion and Wichita houses
(1929 and 1946). The Futuro probably owed something
to these earlier experiments―one, a hexagonal
house suspended by cables from a central mast that
contained the essential services; the other, a round,
domed, moveable housing solution for post-war
Americans.
At least as influential upon Suuronen must have
been a hitherto unnoticed oddity from Germany, the
Kugelhaus (literally ‘ball-house’)―or ‘portable globe
house for well-rounded living’, which featured in
the popular magazine Science and Mechanics, January1961.^5 This spherical portable home was the invention
of Dr Johann Ludowici who had been commissioned
by the Belgian government to design low-cost housing
for workers upriver in the Congo. Its spherical shape
allowed the greatest volume (they were 120 square
feet) for the least surface area. Made from lightweight
reinforced concrete, metal or plastic (‘just one inch
of concrete gives good results’), it could be delivered
fully furnished to location by truck, helicopter, or
even towed behind a boat―it floated. The plan is
remarkably like that of the Futuro. The Kugelhaus was
itself a descendant no doubt of the late eighteenth-
century experiments (on paper only) of Étienne-
Louis Boullée and Claude-Nicolas Ledoux. Their
spheres and domes and barrel vaults, like those of the
Renaissance and of Roman antiquity, were usually
invested with symbolism of God, eternity and the
heavens.
Quickly the Futuro garnered international
attention. A day after the Apollo 11 moon-landing in
July 1969 the New York Times announced that ‘a saucer-
shaped house arrives on earth’;^6 an example was
displayed on a boat on London’s Thames the same
year. Princess Margaret paid a visit. Manufacturing
rights were snapped up around the globe, including
(opposite) Futuro house at Paringa River, Westland
(Photograph: Nick McQuoid)
(right) Floorpan of a Futuro house
(Courtesy Grant Major)
(below) Interior of a Futuro house in Le Havre, France, 2019
(Photograph: Laurent Lachèvre. Courtesy http://www.futurohouse.co.uk))