The Coffee Cup House
Retretti Art Center, Töölönpuisto gardens, Turku Theater
Coffee drinking is an important part of the Finnish lifestyle, as well as doing the pools and building your own house. The shape of the Coffee Cup House is inspired by the famous Teema coffee cup, designed by Kaj Franck and loved by all Finns. Nowadays you can find it in design shops all over the world, but in Finland it is a common utensil sold in supermarkets. The House’s window and door handle are shaped like cross from a pools coupon.
The cup house was originally made for the Coffee Percolator 2000 play at the Turku Theater. At that time it was painted yellow on the outside. In the summer of 2000 it was part of the Töölölahti gardens summer exhibition and its colour was changed into blueberry blue, which was, along with yellow, an original Teema cup colour.
For the version in Retretti the colour was changed to orange to give inspiration for a new Teema cup colour! Inside the cup house is black up to the ”surface of a full cup of coffee”. A platform is built where the coffee surface would be, where the visitors can sit and enjoy a cup of real coffee.