Professor Yrjö Kukkapuro

Professor Yrjö Kukkapuro’s design work has had a great impact on Finnish furniture design. He is a prominent modernist who started his career in post-war Finland in 1955. Kukkapuro has always been open-minded in his designs, using all possible materials from plastic to steel and wood. Kukkapuro’s products have been exhibited in many international museums.

Moderno: a modest classic

Yrjö Kukkapuro started developing the Moderno collection in 1956 when he was a second-year student of furniture design at Ateneum. Kukkapuro’s career got off to a flying start at the end of his studies, when the shoe shop Mononen needed new seats for their shop in Helsinki. The chair project was still under development, but it started to gain momentum and Moderno was commercially launched in 1958.

The distinctive Moderno is a chair designed with precision in every detail. The extremely simplified structure, finished details and disciplined aesthetics make Moderno a time and wear-resistant piece of furniture for both public spaces and homes. As an expert in human ergonomics, Kukkapuro has realised his ideal of a chair with perfect seating comfort in Moderno. Due to their ingenious and simple structure, the products in the collection are lightweight and versatile. Thanks to the tubular frame, the amount of material used in the products and their fire load are both small, so they are well suited for restaurants, ships and office buildings. The extensive Moderno collection includes fully upholstered lounge chairs, stackable chairs, office chairs and bar stools for various purposes.

Moderno, the collection and the company

In 1955, Yrjö Kukkapuro won a furniture design competition organised by Haimi Oy, and the picture of the winning chair was published in the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper. This encouraged him to found a company called Moderno together with Mauri Enestam, even though Yrjö was still a student at the time. Kukkapuro was responsible for designing the furniture, and Enestam was responsible for sales and marketing. The company hired Sakari Laine as an upholsterer. They also hired young metal worker Aukusti Huoponen to work for the company. He worked at Kino-kaluste Oy, doing contract work for cinemas. Huoponen became the prototype master of designers of an entire era and the number one man when it came to making metal frames. Even the metallic wall structures of Kukkapuro’s studio building are Huoponen’s handiwork.

A unique logo was chosen for Moderno Oy in 1957, depicting a dragonfly that Yrjö had drawn in a general composition course under the guidance of Runar “Skåpe” Englund and Mikko Vuorinen. Kukkapuro started designing products for the Moderno collection in the mid-1950s. It took until 1962 for the company, which got its kick-off from the shoe shop, to be fully operational.

However, Enestam fell unexpectedly and seriously ill and they had to consider selling the company. Lepokalusto came to the rescue, buying all of Moderno Oy in 1960. Through this acquisition, the Moderno collection was also transferred under Lepokalusto’s ownership. In the 1960s, the Lepo collection was divided into two parts: the Moderno collection, which was designed by interior architect Yrjö Kukkapuro, and the Pehmo collection, which was designed by interior architects Oiva Parviainen, Reijo Ojanen and Erik Uhlenius. The Moderno pieces, like all Lepo products, were assigned an L number code and a name. In the brochures, the name moderno was always written in bold and with lower case letters.

Studio Kukkapuro

Yrjö Kukkapuro and architect Eero Paloheimo designed the studio building together. It was completed in 1968. The 200-square-metre space, built within a single concrete shell with no partition walls, is an exceptionally original structural experiment. Its futuristic and open-minded architecture has attracted international attention since its completion. Irmeli and Yrjö Kukkapuro’s studio is the birthplace of countless of pieces of furniture and art. This experimental and limitless atmosphere has given birth to an entire life’s work.

Yrjö Kukkapuro – design thoughts

Yrjö Kukkapuro’s career has lasted almost 70 years. His own design language is based on the synthesis of ergonomic functionality and aesthetic appearance. Kukkapuro loves details that have a practical use. Clearly visible screws and fasteners are one of his trademarks. Kukkapuro thinks that the teaching of detail design should be increased in the education of interior architects and furniture designers. A fluid form alone is not enough – you also need to be familiar with the structural aspects. In Kukkapuro’s opinion, the production of distinctive, well-designed furniture made in a studio-like way is becoming more prevalent. Good design is based on knowledge of manufacturing techniques, materials and ergonomics.

When you add skilful detail design to this, the end product will stand out even more in the market. A well-designed product is also long-lasting, promoting sustainable development.

My teacher and friend

I first met Yrjö Kukkapuro when I had just started my studies, in the hallway of the Tilgmann house in 1973. Yrjö was walking in the hallway, and our teacher stopped him to ask what he was working on. Being as polite as he is, Yrjö stayed to chat, even though he was probably busy with something once again.

But when given the opportunity to talk about chairs, suddenly this tall, slender man started talking with his hands, illustrating his idea in pantomime and showing how it had come about. Leaning over, he described the shape he was currently working on. We were absolutely blown away by this performance. I thought that if someone can do that and is having that much fun doing it, I want to become a furniture designer, too.

Yrjö was my teacher during my last year as a student. As he also worked as the rector of the University of Art and Design Helsinki, he had many administrative tasks to take care of as well. During these lessons, I didn’t really get anything of my own done, because I was working as his assistant at the same time. You see, I tried to follow his design vision at the office, and my own vision as a designer had not yet fully developed. 1975 was an extremely lucky year for me, as Rudi Merz left to become an independent designer and I was asked to become Kukkapuro’s assistant.

As an employer, Kukkapuro was demanding, but also patient and helpful. We always started our work day at exactly eight o’clock. I was tasked with finalizing his sketches of chair designs, profiles, moulds and various widgets and pieces. As my experience grew, so did my design responsibilities. Back then, people drew by hand using felt-tip pens. Yrjö could always see the final vision in his mind, and he knew how to make it a reality by describing it. When asked to, he might tear off the corner of a sketching paper, using it to sketch out the model he was currently working on. Then he gave the piece to me and told me to finish the sketch. The next morning, he checked that I had understood and followed his instructions.

He has an incredibly keen eye for spotting even the smallest mistakes. One time, he entered the workroom of the Haimi factory, where the workroom was located at the time. Standing at the doorway, he glanced at the picture on the drawing board and informed us that one of the tubes we had drawn was too thick. I tried to tell him otherwise, but the scale stick proved that he was right. The tube was one millimetrer too thick.

When I started working as Kukkapuro’s assistant, we were living in the final years of the plastic chair era, before the energy crisis. Later, that period of time was automatically left behind. I have talked about it with Yrjö. He felt that the free-form design path with plastic had come to its end and that there was no going back to it for him. The products of the new era were and are made from new starting points, but ergonomics and research are always very much present.

Kukkapuro has had a great career. He is a great visionary and a skilled designer. Everything is based on an extraordinary passion and drive for his work, and lots and lots of dimensioning research. Kukkapuro’s university was also my university.

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