Designer and professor Yrjö Kukkapuro died at the age of 91 on 8 February 2025 at his home in Kauniainen.
Kukkapuro’s long career in design spanned over 70 years. Almost every Finn has sat on a chair that he designed–at a metro station, in a bank, at school, or in a library. Yrjö Kukkapuro focused on furniture for public spaces and office chairs, but their comfort and ease made them more than suitable for homes.
Yrjö Kukkapuro never stopped designing and coming up with new ideas. At the very end, he was pondering the concept of a new chair, the plan of which was clear in his mind. However, his assistant was not able to do the drawings of the chair in time.
Designer and professor Yrjö Kukkapuro was born in 1933 in Vyborg, Finland. His career began at the time Finnish design was rising to international fame. Kukkapuro’s open-minded and experimental designs established his place among the elite of post-war designers.
Kukkapuro’s chairs received prizes and they are included in the collections of leading design museums, such as MoMA in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Vitra Museum, and Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. These collections include chair models such as Ateljee, Karuselli, Long Chair and Experiment.
Over the years Kukkapuro’s input in designs was astonishing in quantitative terms.
Kukkapuro worked in his studio side by side with his wife, artist Irmeli Kukkapuro (1934–2022). The studio and home, designed by Yrjö Kukkapuro and professor Eero Paloheimo, was built in 1968. The house will be turned into a museum in 2026.
Today Kukkapuro Studio collaborates with several companies, for example, Artek / Vitra, Hem, Modeo, Lepo Product, Innolux, and Blond Belysning.