Yesterday, I read a chapter titled "Futuro: Flashback: The Prefab from Another Planet" from the book "Top This and Other Parables of Design" by Phil Patton. In this text, originally written by Phil for The New York Times in 2005, he looked into the UFO-like houses found in the US. Firstly, the word "flashback" already appears in the chapter title, and I had no idea it would actually lead to a flashback from my childhood.
The story begins with a person who noticed one of these houses in Illinois in the early 80s. They became obsessed with it and eventually bought the exact house in the 90s, placing it in their backyard. The name for this peculiar-looking house is "Futuro house." At this point, I had to Google it to see what this house actually looked like.

This is where I thought I had seen this thing. I instantly had a clear memory of seeing a UFO-looking house back in Estonia in the 90s when I was a kid. I even remember my dad taking a photo of me in it. But then I thought, this cannot be that exact design. Perhaps someone built another UFO-looking shack in the middle of Estonia just for fun. I quickly Googled "Futuro house Estonia" and to my surprise, I found images of it! And yes, it is that exact design. I texted my mom and asked if we have a photo of it somewhere.
There was another way to test my theory. In the late 90s, I came across a music video by Jimi Tenor, a Finnish music producer known for releasing albums on UK-based Warp records. In 1999, he released a track called "The Year of the Apocalypse." As a kid, I remember watching the video on TV and being astonished to see that it was filmed in my own neighborhood, Lasnamäe, a grey suburban area in Tallinn. I could actually see my own house in the video, and I couldn't believe it.

The two men hanging around my house in Lasnamäe was only half of the video. The other half featured Jimi Tenor arriving in a UFO that looked exactly like the Futuro house I remember seeing as a child somewhere in Estonia. He walks out of it wearing a crown, and then everybody starts dancing around the yellow flying saucer.

At this stage, I had no doubt that I was looking at one of the original Futuro houses that I had seen as a kid in the 90s. And now, here I am, reading about it 30 years later in a design book in New York.
The house itself has an interesting story. It was originally built as a vacation house for a friend by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen. He never intended to mass produce them. However, a Finnish company called Polykem saw the potential of Futuro houses and started manufacturing them in 1968. Leonard Fruchter, a Philadelphia developer, obtained the American licensing rights and began marketing them in the US the following year. The houses started gaining attention, with an article in the New York Times on the day of the first moon landing announcing the arrival of the Futuro in America.

The person mentioned by Phil Patton in his book, who saw a Futuro house in Illinois and ended up buying it, became obsessed with them and started a website futuro-house.net (last updated in 2005). The website aimed to track all Futuro houses around the world. According to the website's estimates, there are approximately 60 Futuro houses in various conditions worldwide. Surprisingly, the highest number of Futuro houses were found in New Zealand. The country is home to a dozen of them. There’s a great article on Designboom titled “Extremely rare 1960's futuro UFO house hits the market in New Zealand” that has more photos of the house.
Interestingly, the Futuro house was a genuine attempt at pre-fabricated housing. It was made of polyester plastic and fiberglass, and in the US, it was sold for $12,000 - $14,000. It was one of many experimental plastic houses of that time. When purchased, it came in 16 pieces and could easily be disassembled and transported in one truck.
Besides Futuro, a futuristic UFO house, Matti Suuronen designed another prefabricated house in 1971 called Venturo. It was the last building in the Casa Finlandia series made of fiberglass-reinforced polyester plastic. Originally intended as a weekend house or bungalow, Venturo was also conveniently repurposed as banks, kiosks, cafés, filling stations, and more.

It is fascinating to observe the emergence of designs from the 60s and 70s for prefabricated houses and compare them to what we see today. One example is the designs coming from AirBnB's Samara project.
This morning, I awoke to a text from my mom containing a photo from our family album. In this particular snapshot, my brother and I are captured inside the iconic Futuro house in Pärnu, Estonia, dating back to 1997. Amusingly enough, we are both sporting matching shirts in the picture.
I guess thanks for the “Flashback” Phil Patton. Both the article and the memory.