The "Futuro Memories" project is a reflection on Finnish architecture embodied in the Futuro house project. This icon of the decade of the 70s is a futuristic house egg-shaped designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen in 1965. For the project Futurs Abandonats, curated by Martí Peran, Banassar has invited Lin Hengtai to colaborate in the project by writing and reciting two poems for the video A Dream from Before History (Futuro Memories):

Futuro 1

Pile up silence in a tomb for time.
The characters have become skeletons
the setting already has turned to ashes.
The theme, after flashing lightning
scurried on the open wilds of the
imagination.
Red earth has been hammered into iron
and steel small bits of coal have been
made into diamonds.

Futuro 2

Owing to the thorn’s urgent demands
sharpness took shape
a point originated in a dream from
before history,
evoking fleshly pain spurting warm
blood.
O, the future is locked in ice and snow
is warm!

 

As we can read at the dossier Futuros Abandonats, this research project sets off from the analysis of two case studies. The first case is on the island of Mallorca, where, after an exhaustive mapping of all Futuro houses remaining in the world, we discovered there was one in the woods in Calvià. A long-term project was carried out around this house, with various actions and events in an artistic vein which led to its later revalorisation and positioning in the art market. The second case was an abandoned leisure complex in Wanli, Taiwan, where a dozen Futuro houses remain. After fieldwork in both sites, two video pieces were developed, which along with theoretical research make up the general project of A Dream from Before History (Futuro Memories).

The iconic value of this project, a futurist house, made us think on some other hidden layers that exist when a house is designed, that's why it's so important to revisit this kind of influential projects and understand their influence not only in the architectural field, but in art and design as well.

/// More info on the project Futuro House de Matti Suuronen
/// Video 'futuro memories: a dream from before history', on Vimeo
/// Joan Bennassar web-site, at joanbennassar.com