Remembering Yrjö Kukkapuro, Finnish grand master of design (1933-2025)

Yrjö Kukkapuro, Finnish grand master of design, died last week aged 91. Almost everyone in Finland has sat on a Kukkapuro chair – in a school, hospital, office or home. Over his seven-decade career, he created comfortable, functional best sellers that tapped into the trends of the time, and even in his eighth decade managed to create pieces that looked arrestingly modern.

I interviewed Kukkapuro in 2020, days before the first lockdown, at his studio on the outskirts of Helsinki. He was frail but had a twinkle in his eye; his daughter Isa translated while keeping watch on her mother, Irmeli, who was pottering at her mood board. (Irmeli passed away in 2022.) The devoted couple built the studio on a plot of land given to them by Irmeli’s father in 1968 and they worked side by side for 52 years.

How many chairs did he create? ‘About 100,’ he answered, ‘although I haven’t counted. Perhaps I should.’ That will be Isa’s job now, and organising the archive is no mean feat. When I visited, rows of colourful chairs were randomly stacked, piles of papers overflowed from box files, sketches and models were scattered on every surface.

Life in the atelier was always unconventional. Friends, assistants and collaborators came and went with frequency. Isa’s bedroom was a small annexe off the tiny open-plan kitchen; Yrjö and Irmeli slept in a bed partitioned off behind a bookcase and the bathrooms were two fibreglass pods with basic showerheads.

Kukkapuro studied furniture design at Helsinki’s Ateneum Arts Museum in the 1950s and was the only one on the course who knew how to make prototypes. This was thanks to a childhood in eastern Finland building boats with his father and sewing with his mother, who was a tailor. On graduation, he set up a workshop, called it Moderno, and created range after range of settees and beds. Over the years, this stretched to six pieces and became Kukkapuro’s breakthrough collection. It is still in production today.

Of all the classics he created, the 1964 ‘Karuselli’ chair (in which he is seen seated, top) is perhaps his most famous. The late Terence Conran hailed it the most comfortable chair he had ever sat in. Kukkapuro was obsessed with posture and comfort, which explains why his chairs are still so popular, and to make ‘Karuselli’, he wrapped himself in chicken wire, made a plaster cast of his body in a lounging posture, and then tested it on several plywood versions until he got it right. (An alternative, apocryphal story exists about the origins of the ‘Karuselli’: one night, rather worse for wear after some heavy drinking, Kukkapuro supposedly fell in the snow and used the impression his body left there as its inspiration.) Whatever his modus operandi, ‘Karuselli’ was an instant success.

Other highlights include the 1980s ‘Experiment’ collection of chairs, tables and sofas with armrests and legs in Mondrian colours, some of which are produced in limited editions by Helsinki gallery Lemmetti. In the 1990s came the ‘East West’ collection, a series of chairs that combined clean lines with lacquered bamboo and Chinese joinery. When I was at Kukkapuro’s studio, a new prototype of the ‘Simple’ chair was wheeled out. Kukkapuro, in his trademark canary yellow beret, walked around it, blew through his lips and shook his head. It was too high and the steel arms needed to be reworked in ash. It was sent back to manufacturer Avarte’s facility in Shanghai to be tweaked.

‘Kukkapuro’ was lucky enough to enjoy his great success. He won many prizes, and took trips abroad for lectures and exhibitions. He, Irmeli and Isa would pile into the Mini Clubman, pack a tent in the boot, and hit the road. Museums such as the Victoria and Albert in the UK and the Museum of Modern Art in New York have Kukkapuro works in their permanent collections. Next year, the studio, with its concrete, wave-like roof is to be turned into a museum. ‘To create best sellers, it’s the dream,’ he said. ‘They will go on longer than me.’

yrjokukkapuro.com