- Eero Saarinen
Infobox Architect
caption=Eero Saarinen withFlorence Knoll inspecting
a prototype of theTulip chair
name=Eero Saarinen
nationality=Finnish American
birth_date=August 20, 1910
birth_place=Kirkkonummi ,Finland
death_date=Death date and age|1961|9|1|1910|8|20
death_place=Ann Arbor,Michigan , USA
practice_name=
significant_buildings=See list of works
significant_projects=
significant_design=Gateway Arch Tulip chair
awards=| Eero Saarinen (pronounced|eːro saːrinen) (August 20, 1910Kirkkonummi ,Finland – September 1, 1961 Ann Arbor,Michigan ,United States ) was aFinnish American architect and product designer of the 20th century famous for varying his style according to the demands of the project fix|link=Wikipedia:Contents|text=citation needed: simple, sweeping, arching structural curves or machine-like rationalism.Biography
Eero Saarinen, who was born in
Hvitträsk , coincidentally shared the same birthday as his father,Eliel Saarinen fix|link=Wikipedia:Contents|text=citation needed. Saarinen emigrated to the United States of America in 1923 when he was thirteen years old fix|link=Wikipedia:Contents|text=citation needed. He grew up within the community of theCranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, where his father taught. Saarinen studied under his father and took courses in sculpture and furniture design. Saarinen had a close relationship with fellow students Charles andRay Eames , and became good friends with Florence (Schust) Knoll. Beginning in September 1929, he studied sculpture at theAcadémie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, France.Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen and Donald Albrecht (eds), "Eero Saarinen. Shaping the Future" (2006)] He then went on to study architecture at Yale University, completing his studies in 1934. After that, he toured Europe and North Africa for a year and spent another year back in Finland, after which he returned to Cranbrook to work for his father and teach at the academy. He became anaturalized citizen of the U.S. in 1940. Saarinen was recruited by his friend, who was also an architect, to join the military service in theOffice of Strategic Services (OSS). Saarinen was assigned to draw illustrations for bomb disassembly manuals and to provide designs for the Situation Room in the White House fix|link=Wikipedia:Contents|text=citation needed. Saarinen worked full time for the OSS until 1944. After his father's death in 1950, Saarinen founded his own architect's office, "Eero Saarinen and Associates". He had two children from his first marriage, Eric and Susan.In 1954, after having divorced his first wife, Saarinen married Aline Bernstein, an art critic at "
The New York Times ". They had a son, Eames, named after his collaboratorCharles Eames .Furniture
Saarinen first received critical recognition, while still working for his father, for a chair designed together with Charles Eames for the "Organic Design in Home Furnishings" competition in 1940, for which they received first prize. This chair, like all other Saarinen chairs was taken into production by the Knoll furniture company, founded by the Saarinen family friend Florence (Schust) Knoll together with her husband
Hans Knoll . Further attention came also while Saarinen was still working for his father, when he took first prize in the 1948 competition for the design of theJefferson National Expansion Memorial , St. Louis, not completed until the 1960s. The competition award was mistakenly sent to his father.During his long association with Knoll he designed many important pieces of furniture including the "Grasshopper" lounge chair and ottoman (1946), the "Womb" chair and ottoman (1948), the "Womb" settee (1950), side and arm chairs (1948-1950), and his most famous "Tulip" or "Pedestal" group (1956), which featured side and arm chairs, dining, coffee and side tables, as well as a stool. All of these designs were highly successful except for the "Grasshopper" lounge chair, which, although in production through 1965, was not a big seller. His Womb chair and ottoman, as well as his "Tulip" collection, have remained in production and are considered iconic.
Architecture
The first major work by Saarinen, started together with his father, was the
General Motors Technical Center in Warren,Michigan , designed in the rationalist Miesian style: in steel and glass, but with the added accent of panels in two shades of blue. With the success of the scheme, Saarinen was then invited by other major American corporations to design their new headquarters: these includedJohn Deere ,IBM , andCBS . Despite their rationality, however, the interiors usually contained more dramatic sweeping staircases, as well as furniture designed by Saarinen, such as the Pedestal Series. In the 1950s he began to receive more commissions from American universities for campus designs and individual buildings; these include the Noyes dormitory at Vassar, as well as an ice rink,Morse College , andEzra Stiles College atYale University . Both the Morse and Ezra Stiles Colleges at Yale have received criticism from students for failing to fulfill basic dormitory needs.He served on the jury for the
Sydney Opera House commission and was crucial in the selection of the internationally-known design byJørn Utzon ."Eero Saarinen and Associates" was the architectural firm of Eero Saarinen, who was the principal partner from 1950 until his death in 1961. The firm was initially known as "Saarinen, Swansen and Associates", headed by
Eliel Saarinen andRobert Swansen from the late 1930s until Eliel's death in 1950. The firm was located inBloomfield Hills, Michigan until 1961 when the practice was moved toHamden, Connecticut . Under Eero Saarinen, the firm carried out many of its most important works, including theJefferson National Expansion Memorial (Gateway Arch) inSt. Louis, Missouri , theTWA Flight Center atJohn F. Kennedy International Airport , and the main terminal ofDulles International Airport nearWashington, D.C. . Many of these projects usecatenary curves in their structural designs. One of the best-known thin-shell concrete structures in America is theKresge Auditorium (MIT), which was designed by Saarinen. Another thin-shell structure that he created is theIngalls Rink (Yale University), which has suspension cables connected to a single concrete backbone and is nicknamed "the whale." Undoubtedly his most famous work is the TWA Flight Center, which represents the culmination of his previous designs and demonstrates his expressionism and the technical marvel in concrete shells. ]Saarinen died, while undergoing an operation for a brain tumor, at the age of 51. His partners,
Kevin Roche andJohn Dinkeloo , completed his ten remaining projects, including the St. Louis arch. Afterwards, the name of the firm was changed to "Kevin Roche, John Dinkeloo, and Associates", orRoche-Dinkeloo .Reputation
Eero Saarinen was elected a Fellow of the
American Institute of Architects in 1952. He is also a winner of theAIA Gold Medal .Saarinen is now considered one of the masters of American 20th Century architecture. ] There has been a veritable surge of interest in Saarinen's work in recent years, including a major exhibition and several books. This is partly due to the Roche and Dinkeloo office having donated their Saarinen archives to Yale University, but also because Saarinen's oeuvre can be said to fit in with present-day concerns about pluralism of styles. He was criticized in his own time — most vociferously by critic
Vincent Scully — for having no identifiable style (Miesian rationalism for the several company headquarters; organic or abstract expressionism for several individual structures such as the TWA Flight Center, as well as his furniture designs; but also classicising eclecticism, for instance in the USA embassy in London): one explanation for this is that Saarinen adapted his modernist vision to each individual client and project, which were never exactly the same.A list of works
* Remodelling of the
Swedish Theatre ,Helsinki (with Jarl Eklund)
*Concordia Senior College campus, nowConcordia Theological Seminary ,Fort Wayne, Indiana [http://replica.palni.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=/copcampus]
* The Law School at theUniversity of Chicago , Chicago, Illinois.
* The Miller House, Columbus, Indiana.
*Berkshire Music Center , Opera Shed Tanglewood, Massachusetts.
* Gateway Arch,St. Louis, Missouri
* TWA Terminal atJFK International Airport
*Washington Dulles International Airport
*Kresge Auditorium andMIT Chapel at MIT
* Bell Labs inHolmdel, New Jersey
*Case Study House #9, the John Entenza House (collaboration withCharles Eames )
*CBS Building (Black Rock)New York
*Vivian Beaumont Theater inLincoln Center ,New York
*General Motors Technical Center ,Warren, Michigan
* US Embassies in Oslo and London
*North Christian Church inColumbus, Indiana
* Law School and Woodward Court dormitory (demolished 2002) at theUniversity of Chicago
*Kleinhans Music Hall , Buffalo, New York; designed in collaboration with his fatherEliel Saarinen
*Ezra Stiles College ,Morse College , andIngalls Rink (affectionately known as "The Whale") atYale University
* Noyes House dormitory atVassar College . Its lounge is affectionately called the Jetsons lounge because of its curved architecture.
*Hill College House at theUniversity of Pennsylvania . Originally a women's dormitory, the building was made with a "drawbridge" to symbolically keep men out.
*IBM 'sThomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights,New York
*IBM Rochester , a plant inRochester, Minnesota
*John Deere World Headquarters ,Moline, Illinois
* The "Tulip chair " and "Womb"chair s
* North Campus,University of Michigan ,Ann Arbor ,Michigan
* Earl V. Moore Building, housingthe University of Michigan School of Music
* East Terminal atEllinikon International Airport , Athens Greece), posthum finished.
* Milwaukee County War Memorial Center,Milwaukee, Wisconsin
* Medbury, Fitch and Harvey Ingham Halls, Quadrangle Dormitories ("The Quads"), Hubbell Dining Hall, and Oreon E. Scott Chapel atDrake University inDes Moines, IA Notes
References and further reading
*A&E with Richard Guy Wilson, Ph.D.,(2000). America's Castles: Newspaper Moguls, Pittock Mansion, Cranbrook House & Gardens, The American Swedish Institute. "A&E Television Network".
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*An exhibition of Saarinen's work, "Eero Saarinen: Realizing American Utopia", has been organized by the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York in collaboration with
Yale School of Architecture and theMuseum of Finnish Architecture . The exhibition will tour in Europe and the USA from 2006 to 2010. The exhibition is accompanied by the book "Eero Saarinen. Shaping the Future".See also
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*Thin-shell structure
*Tensile architecture
*List of notable brain tumor patients External links
* [http://archivesofamericanart.si.edu/guides/curators-picture/index.cfm/fuseaction/items.detailItem/ItemID/3191 Letter from Eero Saarinen to Florence Knoll]
* [http://www.designdictionary.co.uk/en/saarinen_eero.htm Eero Saarinen - Design Dictionary] Illustrated article about Eero Saarinen
* [http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2004/11/07/saarinen_rising?pg=full Saarinen rising: A much-maligned modernist finally gets his due]
* [http://www.greatbuildings.com/architects/Eero_Saarinen.html Great buildings online entry]
* [http://www.music.umich.edu/about/facilities/north_campus/som/som.htm Earl V. Moore Building] School building designed by Eero Saarinen
* [http://replica.palni.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=%2Fcopcampus Saarinen's Village: The Concordia Campus Through Time]
* [http://mssa.library.yale.edu/madid/showthumb.php?srchVal=Saarinen&id=txt&pg=1 Digital image database] at theYale University Library , contains 1296 images and drawings from Saarinen's archives
** [http://mssa.library.yale.edu/findaids/stream.php?id=mss&colNum=0593&xmlfile=mssa.ms.0593.xml&srch=saarinen&sch=ead Finding aid to the Eero Saarinen Collection at Manuscripts and Archives] , Yale University Library
* [http://www.mfa.fi/eerosaarineneng Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future] The 50th Anniversary Exhibition of theMuseum of Finnish Architecture
* [http://www.eerosaarinen.net/ Eero Saarinen: Realizing American Utopia]
* [http://www.braingainmarketing.com/media/saarinen/ Eero Saarinen Exhibitions at Cranbrook Art Museum]
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