Eero Saarinen | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Saarinen in 1955 or 1956 | |
| Born | (1910-08-20)August 20, 1910 |
| Died | September 1, 1961(1961-09-01) (aged 51) Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Académie de la Grande Chaumière Yale University |
| Occupation | Architect |
| Awards | AIA Gold Medal (1962) |
| Practice | Associated architectural firm[s] |
| Buildings | Seelist of works |
| Design | Gateway Arch General Motors Technical Center Dulles International Airport Main Terminal TWA Flight Center Tulip chair |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 3, includingEric Saarinen |
| Parent(s) | Eliel Saarinen Loja Gesellius |
| Relatives | Pipsan Saarinen Swanson (sister) |
Eero Saarinen (/ˈeɪroʊˈsɑːrɪnən,ˈɛəroʊ-/,Finnish:[ˈeːroˈsɑːrinen]; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer. Saarinen's work includes theGeneral Motors Technical Center; theDulles International Airport Main Terminal; theTWA Flight Center atJohn F. Kennedy International Airport; theVivian Beaumont Theater atLincoln Center; theGateway Arch; and theIBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. During his career, Saarinen was elected aFellow of theAmerican Institute of Architects and served on theNational Institute of Arts and Letters.
Born inHvitträsk, Finland, he was the son of Finnish architectEliel Saarinen, and immigrated to the United States as a teenager. Saarinen grew up inBloomfield Hills, Michigan, studying at theCranbrook Academy of Art, where his father taught. Saarinen became anaturalized citizen of the United States in 1940, a year after marrying the sculptorLilian Swann, with whom he had two children. After divorcing Swann in 1954, Saarinen marriedAline Bernstein Louchheim. In 1961, Saarinen died while undergoing an operation for a brain tumor.
Eero Saarinen was born inHvitträsk, Finland (then an autonomous state in theRussian Empire), on August 20, 1910, to Finnish architectEliel Saarinen and his second wife, Louise, on his father's 37th birthday.[1][2] They migrated to the United States in 1923, when Eero was thirteen.[1][2] He grew up inBloomfield Hills, Michigan, where his father taught and was dean of theCranbrook Academy of Art, and he took courses in sculpture and furniture design there.[3] He had a close relationship with fellow students, designersCharles andRay Eames, and became good friends with architectFlorence Knoll (née Schust).[4]
Saarinen began studies in sculpture at theAcadémie de la Grande Chaumière inParis, France, in September 1929.[4] He then went on to study at theYale School of Architecture, completing his studies in 1934.[5][1] He subsequently toured Europe andNorth Africa for two years, as well as working for a time in Helsinki in the office of architect Jarl Eklund, where he supervised the remodeling of theSwedish Theatre (1936). That same year, he returned to the United States to work in his father's architectural practice.[5]
After his tour of Europe and North Africa, Saarinen returned to Cranbrook to work for his father and teach at the academy. His father's firm, Saarinen, Swanson and Associates, was headed by Eliel Saarinen and Robert Swanson from the late 1930s until Eliel's death in 1950 and headquartered inBloomfield Hills, Michigan, until 1961 when the practice was moved toHamden, Connecticut.
While still working for his father, Saarinen first gained recognition for his design capabilities for a chair he designed together with Charles Eames, which received first place in the Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition in 1940. TheTulip chair, like all other Saarinen chairs, was taken into production by theKnoll furniture company, founded byHans Knoll, who married Saarinen family friendFlorence (Schust) 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 theGateway Arch National Park (then known as the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial) inSt. Louis. The memorial was not completed until the 1960s. The competition award was mistakenly addressed to his father because both he and his father had entered the competition separately.
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),[6] 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 success.
One of Saarinen's earliest works to receive international acclaim is theCrow Island School inWinnetka, Illinois (1940). The first major work by Saarinen, in collaboration with his father, was theGeneral Motors Technical Center inWarren, Michigan, which follows the rationalist designMiesian style, incorporating steel and glass but with the addition of accent of panels in two shades of blue. The GM Technical Center was constructed in 1956, with Saarinen using models, which allowed him to share his ideas with others and gather input from other professionals.[7]
With the success of this project, Saarinen was then invited by other major American corporations, such asJohn Deere,IBM/IBM Rochester, andCBS, to design their new headquarters or other major corporate buildings. Despite the overall rational design philosophy, the interiors usually contained dramatic sweeping staircases as well as furniture designed by Saarinen, such as the Pedestal series.[8] In the 1950s, he began to receive more commissions from American universities for campus designs and individual buildings. These include Birch Hall atAntioch College, the Noyes dormitory atVassar andHill College House at theUniversity of Pennsylvania as well as theIngalls ice rink,Ezra Stiles andMorse Colleges atYale University,Concordia Senior College inFort Wayne, Indiana, theMIT Chapel andKresge Auditorium atMIT, and theUniversity of Chicago Law School building and grounds.
Saarinen served on the jury for theSydney Opera House commission in 1957 and was crucial in the selection of the now internationally known design byJørn Utzon.[9] A jury which did not include Saarinen had discarded Utzon's design in the first round; Saarinen reviewed the discarded designs, recognized a quality in Utzon's design, and ultimately assured the commission of Utzon.[9]
After his father's death in July 1950, Saarinen founded his own architect's office, Eero Saarinen and Associates.[10] He was the principal partner from 1950 until his death. The firm carried out many of its most important works, including theBell Labs Holmdel Complex inHolmdel Township, New Jersey; theGateway Arch inSt. Louis, Missouri; theMiller House inColumbus, Indiana; theTWA Flight Center atJohn F. Kennedy International Airport, which he worked on with Charles J. Parise; theDulles International Airport Main Terminal; and the new East Air Terminal of the oldAthens airport in Greece, which opened in 1967. Many of these projects usecatenary curves in their structural designs.
In 1949 and 1950, Saarinen was hired by the then-newBrandeis University to create a master plan for the campus.[11] Saarinen's planA Foundation for Learning: Planning the Campus of Brandeis University (1949; second edition 1951), developed withMatthew Nowicki, called for a central academic complex surrounded by residential quadrangles along a peripheral road.[12] The plan was never built but was useful in attracting donors.[11] Saarinen did build a few residential structures on the campus, including Ridgewood Quadrangle (1950), Sherman Student Center (1952) and Shapiro Dormitory at Hamilton Quadrangle (1952).[12][11] These have all been either demolished or extensively remodeled.[citation needed]
One of his best knownthin-shell concrete structures is theKresge Auditorium atMIT. Another thin-shell structure isIngalls Rink atYale University, which has suspension cables connected to a single concrete backbone and is nicknamed "the whale". His most famous work is theTWA Flight Center atJohn F. Kennedy International Airport, which represents the culmination of his previous designs and his genius for expressing the ultimate purpose of each building, what he called the "style for the job".[13][page needed] In 2019, the terminal was transformed into theTWA Hotel and features furniture designed by Saarinen.[14][15][16]
In 1960, Saarinen was hired to design theCBS Building in New York City.[17] It was the only skyscraper he would ever design.[18]
Saarinen designed theKleinhans Music Hall inBuffalo, New York, together with his father, Eliel Saarinen. He also designed the formerEmbassy of the United States in London, which opened in 1960, and the formerEmbassy of the United States in Oslo.
Saarinen worked with his father, mother, and sister designing elements of the Cranbrook campus inBloomfield Hills, Michigan, including the Cranbrook School, Kingswood School, the Cranbrook Art Academy, and the Cranbrook Science Institute. Eero Saarinen's leaded-glass designs are a prominent feature of these buildings throughout the campus.
Saarinen was recruited byDonal McLaughlin, an architectural school friend from his Yale days, 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 theSituation Room in the White House.[19] Saarinen worked full-time for the OSS until 1944.[13]: 329
Eero Saarinen was elected aFellow of theAmerican Institute of Architects in 1952.[20] He was elected a member of theNational Institute of Arts and Letters in 1954.[21] In 1962, he was posthumously awarded a gold medal by the American Institute of Architects.[22]
In 1940, he received two first prizes together withCharles Eames in the furniture design competition of theMuseum of Modern Art in New York City. In 1948, he won the first prize in the Jefferson National Monument competition. The Boston Arts festival in 1953 gave him their Grand Architectural Award. He received the First Honor award of theAmerican Institute of Architects twice, in 1955 and 1956, and their gold medal in 1962. In 1965 he took first prize in US Embassy competition in London.[23]
Saarinen became anaturalized citizen of the United States in 1940.[24]
In 1939, Saarinen married the sculptorLilian Swann. They had two children,Eric and Susan Saarinen. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1954. That same year, Saarinen marriedAline Bernstein Louchheim, an art critic atThe New York Times. Saarinen met Louchheim when she came toDetroit to interview him for his contributions to the recently completedGeneral Motors Technical Center.[25] Saarinen and Louchheim had one son together, whom they named Eames after Saarinen's collaboratorCharles Eames.[26][27] In addition to their respective contributions to architecture, design, and criticism, Eero and Aline Saarinen are remembered for their affectionate and detailed personal papers, held at theArchives of American Art.
Saarinen died on September 1, 1961, at the age of 51 while undergoing an operation inAnn Arbor, Michigan for abrain tumor. He was overseeing the completion of a new music building for theUniversity of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance.[28]
By the 21st century, Saarinen was considered one of the masters of American 20th-century architecture.[13][page needed] During that time, his work was the subject of a major exhibition and several books. This is partly becauseRoche-Dinkeloo, the successor to Saarinen's firm, donated its 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 Yale'sVincent Scully—for having no identifiable style; one explanation for this is that Saarinen's vision was adapted to each individual client and project, which were never exactly the same.[13][page needed] Scully also criticized him for designing buildings that were "packages", with "no connection with human use . . . at once cruelly inhuman and trivial, as if they had been designed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff."[29]
The papers of Aline and Eero Saarinen, from 1906 to 1977,[30] were donated in 1973 to theArchives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution (by Charles Alan,Aline Saarinen's brother and executor of her estate[31]). In 2006, the bulk of these primary source documents on the couple were digitized and posted online on the Archives' website.[32]
The Eero Saarinen collection at theCanadian Centre for Architecture documents eight built projects, including the oldAthens airport in Greece, the former US Embassy Chanceries inOslo, Norway andLondon, England, corporate projects for John Deere, CBS, and IBM, and theNorth Christian Church in Columbus, Indiana.[33]
An exhibition of Saarinen's work,Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future, was organized by the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York in collaboration withYale School of Architecture, theNational Building Museum, and theMuseum of Finnish Architecture. The exhibition toured in Europe and the United States from 2006 to 2010,[34] including a stint at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC.[35] The exhibition was accompanied by the bookEero Saarinen: Shaping the Future.[36]
In 2016,Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future, a film about Saarinen co-produced by his sonEric Saarinen, premiered on theAmerican Masters series onPBS.[37]
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