Yrjö Kukkapuro's year of celebration

The Master of Finnish Design turns 90 and the year of celebration starts at the EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art.

Yrjö Kukkapuro is one of Finland´s most internationally renowned and award-winning furniture designers and one of the most significant modernists in Scandinavian furniture design. The design work of Kukkapuro is based on both aesthetic and functional innovation, user experience and ergonomics.

Yrjö Kukkapuro has had a long and illustrious career in design, spanning from the mid-1950s to the present. Now Yrjö Kukkapuro turns 90 and it calls for a celebration.
We want to preserve the living legacy of Yrjö Kukkapuro’s design and will celebrate throughout his anniversary year. The year of celebration starts at the EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art.

Remmi, Ateljee and Triennale have already made the return to Finnish production and the reception has been warm. Now we are happy to announce that we will expand local production and launch more classics during the current year. The charming A-509 Rocking Chair will be one of these products.

I am happy that I still get to design and be active in what I love. Working is the same as breathing for me. Throughout the decades, my design philosophy's main principles, ergonomics, aesthetics, and ecology, have guided me. I continue with a good spirit into a new decade.
Yrjö Kukkapuro, in Kauniainen on 27.2.2023

EMMA 1.3.2023 - 28.1.2024

EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art will kick off the Yrjö Kukkapuro’s year of celebration with Yrjö Kukkapuro – Magic Room exhibition, which opens on 1.3.2023.

“Magic Room highlights parallels between Kukkapuro’s designs and modern and postmodern art. The designer’s most enduring source inspiration was his spouse, the printmaker Irmeli Kukkapuro (1934–2022). The exhibition architecture is based on the Magic Room concept developed by Kukkapuro in the 1980s, which displays furniture in the form of an installation using various structures and lighting effects. “