gallery showing works from Collection Kakkonen at the Espoo Museum of Modern Art is that it has taken so long. That it has happened at all is thanks to the efforts of the museum’s directors and the benevolence of Finnish collector Kyösti Kakkonen, who together spent a decade deciding what would fill the 1,000 sq m space.Collection Kakkonen, EMMA, Exhibition Centre WeeGee, 2022
All the great names – Kaj Franck, Timo Sarpaneva, Tapio Wirkkala – are there, along with lesser-known names, and female designers, who make up half of Kakkonen’s 10,000-piece collection. EMMA only has access to 1,300 works and will rotate them frequently, but the debut show kicks off in splendour.
Kakkonen’s first purchase, in 1988, was the estate of Toini Muona – ‘a bohemian with many lovers’, whom he wished he had met. She died in 1987, but worked during the Golden Age from the 1930s to the 1960s, when Finland evolved from post-war poverty into a prosperous nation state – with design clout, thanks in part to the Arabia porcelain factory, which encouraged its artists to experiment.
With 6,500 sq m of gallery space, EMMA is the largest museum in Finland and is located inside the WeeGee Exhibition Centre, a 1960s landmark designed by Finnish architect Aarno Ruusuvuori. A prime example of Finnish constructivism, the building features acres of concrete, a 100m-long glass façade and no fixed internal walls. Displaying glass and ceramics in such