Kaj Franck’s cine film archive entered the museum’s collections in 1990 as part of the designer’s bequest. The collection consists of 21 reels of footage shot on Kodachrome film, a format introduced by Kodak in 1932 for amateur filmmakers. In 2011, the material was also deposited in the collections of the National Audiovisual Institute (KAVI).
In 1956, supported by two travel grants, Kaj Franck embarked on an extensive journey that first took him to New York and across the United States, then onward to Mexico, Japan and Thailand. Before setting out, Franck acquired a cine camera and documented what he encountered along the way. A selection of this extensive cine film footage was digitised and presented as part of the Design Museum’s Travel as a Tool exhibition in 2020. The films reveal what attracted the designer’s attention during his travels.
In spring 2020, as part of the Design Museum’s Travel as a Tool exhibition project, ten film reels were digitised and edited into four excerpts of approximately ten minutes each. The digitisation was carried out by Reel One Ltd, and the excerpts were edited by exhibition curator Anna Vihma.
Kaj Franck’s travel films offer unique insights into what caught the designer’s eye, what interested him during his journeys and what he considered worthy of recording on valuable colour film.
Because KAVI’s equipment did not allow the original cine films to be viewed before digitisation, the selection of reels was based largely on Franck’s own notes written on the film cases. The aim was to focus specifically on footage recorded during his travels. The ten reels yielded nearly three hours of digitised material. Part of the footage was filmed in Helsinki, including Suomenlinna, Market Square, Hakaniemi Market Square, carpet-washing piers, and construction sites in Hermanni and Arabia. Most of the material, however, dates from the 1956 journey.
The excerpts published online seek to provide a representative overview of the collection. The four approximately ten-minute compilations include colour footage from New York and Chicago, rural America and coastal towns, as well as Mexico. They also contain material from Franck’s time in Japan and from his travels to Bangkok and villages in Thailand. Emerging repeatedly throughout the films are themes that appear to have fascinated Franck: beautiful rural landscapes, urban vistas, construction sites, everyday objects, scenes of daily life and children at play.
Originally published: 20 November 2020
Text: Curator Anna Vihma and Chief Curator Susanna Thiel
Edited from the original version: 23 April 2026 / Minni Soverila