Back to the Futuro: why the space-race house may yet have its day

Dreamed up in Finland, shaped like a flying saucer and landing in Yorkshire, Matti Suuronen’s ‘house of the future’ turned out to be an impractical curio – but its atomic-age aesthetics are still alluring

Like jetpacks, flying cars and robot butlers, the Futuro was supposed to revolutionise the way we lived. Unlike those other staples of an imagined future, however, this architectural oddity actually existed. A colourful pod in the shape of an ellipse, the Futuro was a sci-fi vision of the future, offering us a living space light years away from what most of us were used to. Nicknamed the Flying Saucer and the UFO House, it was symbolic of the ambitious space-race era. But as the Futuro celebrates its 50th anniversary, the revolution it promised clearly never happened. Aficionados estimate that of the 100 or so made, only 68½ (more on the half later) remain.

One belongs to Craig Barnes, an artist based in London, who saw a Futuro in a “dishevelled and tired” state while on holiday in Port Alfred, South Africa. He decided to mount a rescue mission. “I have family out there,” he says, “and I’d been seeing this Futuro since I was about three. I viewed it as a spaceship. I drove past in 2013 and workers were knocking down a garage next to it. I panicked and managed to trace the owner.”

Hundreds turned out to see the Futuro paraded through the streets. It looked as if locals had captured a spaceship

It's a wonderful space to bounce around ideas. Everything about it is a celebration of the imagination

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via Science fiction books | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2OWX70O