At home with Domus - Heli Juuti
Heli Juuti is an artist and visual content creator based in Helsinki, Finland. How she came into the possession of four vintage Domus Chairs says a lot about the endurance of Ilmari Tapiovaara’s creation and of the role that design plays in everyday life in Finland.
Heli Juuti’s East Helsinki home is in a brutalist apartment complex from the 1960s surrounded by nature. The view from the wall-length windows is of rocky woodland, and the Baltic Sea is a few minutes’ walk away. An artist who also works in the design industry, Heli has created a home that responds to its surroundings, combining industrial materials – a quartz floor and steel kitchen countertops – with her sculptures, other art and wood details.
Four Domus Chairs are placed around the dining table in the living area. Two were purchased from an online auction site. How she found the other two says a lot about the universal nature of design in Finnish society.
“Twelve years ago, my father was working for the City of Vaasa (in Western Finland) and bought a portable cabin that had been used as a break room on a construction site in the city. He wanted the cabin to serve as a shed for work tools in the grounds of our family’s summer cottage. When it arrived, he opened the cabin and found some chairs inside, which had been used by workers on coffee breaks in between shifts. He saw the chairs, thought they were in bad condition and was about to throw them on the bonfire. Luckily, my mother thought to check with me to see if they were worth keeping and they were saved.”
This story is symbolic of the Domus Chair’s evolution from functional origins to universal wooden chair. Originally designed by Ilmari Tapiovaara in 1946 for student housing, these particular chairs were used in a purely functional context by workers and now enjoy a renewed life as design pieces in Heli’s carefully composed interior.
Details on all four chairs tell different stories about how they have been used in the past, adding depth to the overall aesthetic. For example, two of the chairs feature cut holes beneath the seat, suggesting a connecting bar may have slotted through for large gatherings. For Heli, “this shows that they were used for important shared moments, which I really like.” It's a tradition she intends to continue — she uses the chairs daily, for hosting guests, dining and conversation, as well as when working from home.
“What I really like are the natural materials, that gather these marks of life as the chair ages. It’s quite hard to fake the kind of patina and scuffs that come along the way. That is where the value comes from – time is a luxury in this sense.”
How would Heli describe the Domus Chair in one word?
“Endurance.”
