Espoo Museum of Modern Art

Visual design: Ilona Ilottu / Dog Design. The image on the background is a detail from Lars-Gunnar Nordström's Composition, 1980’s.
Visual design: Ilona Ilottu / Dog Design. The image on the background is a detail from Lars-Gunnar Nordström's Composition, 1980’s.

01.03.2023 - 28.01.2024

Yrjö Kukkapuro – Magic Room

EMMA is proud to present the colourful, imaginative and experimental oeuvre of an influential pioneer of Finnish design, Yrjö Kukkapuro (b. 1933). Yrjö Kukkapuro – Magic Room is an exhibition marking the occasion of the designer’s 90th birthday, presenting his iconic designs alongside his greatest long-term source of inspiration – art. 

Magic Room highlights parallels between Kukkapuro’s designs and modern and postmodern art. The designer's most enduring source of 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. 

Alongside Yrjö Kukkapuro’s designs, Magic Room also features works by his contemporaries and present-day artists: Timo Aalto, Jacob Dahlgren, Beryl Furman, Esa Laurema, Vladimir Kopteff, Kristian Krokfors, Irmeli Kukkapuro, Matti Kujasalo,Jussi Niva, Lars-Gunnar Nordström, Kristiina Nyrhinen, Tarja Pitkänen- Walter, Airi Snellman-Hänninen, Mari Sunna and Osmo Valtonen.