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Eero Saarinen
Eero-Saarinen.jpg
Eero Saarinen
Born August 20, 1910
Kirkkonummi, Finland
Died September 1, 1961(1961-09-01) (aged 51)
Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.
Nationality Finnish American
Occupation Architect
Buildings See list of works
Design Gateway Arch
Tulip chair

Eero Saarinen (born August 20, 1910 – died September 1, 1961) was a famous Finnish American architect and industrial designer. He lived in the 20th century and was known for changing his design style for each project. Sometimes his buildings had simple, curving shapes, and other times they looked very modern and machine-like.

Biography

Eero Saarinen was born on the same day as his father, Eliel Saarinen. In 1923, when Eero was thirteen, his family moved to the United States of America. He grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. His father taught at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where Eero also took classes in sculpture and furniture design. He became good friends with other students like Charles and Ray Eames, and Florence Knoll.

In 1929, he went to Paris, France, to study sculpture. Then, he studied at the Yale School of Architecture until 1934. After that, he traveled around Europe and North Africa for a year. He also spent a year in his home country, Finland.

Eero returned to Cranbrook to work with his father and teach. He became a U.S. citizen in 1940. During World War II, Saarinen joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which was a U.S. intelligence agency. He drew pictures for bomb manuals and designed the Situation Room in the White House. He worked for the OSS until 1944.

After his father passed away in 1950, Saarinen started his own architecture company called "Eero Saarinen and Associates." Sadly, Eero Saarinen died in 1961 from a brain tumor. He was only 51 years old.

Personal life

Eero Saarinen first married a sculptor named Lilian Swann Saarinen. They had two children, Eric and Susan, but they divorced in 1954. Later, he married Aline Bernstein Louchheim, who was an art critic for The New York Times. They had a son named Eames, after his friend and design partner, Charles Eames.

Work

Furniture designs

Saarinen Tulpanstolen
The Tulip chair.

Eero Saarinen first became known for his furniture designs while working with his father. In 1940, he and Charles Eames won a competition for a chair design.

His famous "Tulip Chair" was made by the Knoll furniture company. This company was started by Hans Knoll, who married Florence Knoll, a friend of the Saarinen family.

Saarinen designed many important furniture pieces for Knoll. These include the "Grasshopper" lounge chair (1946), the "Womb" chair (1948), and the "Womb" settee (1950). His most famous designs are from the "Tulip" or "Pedestal" collection (1956). This collection included chairs, dining tables, coffee tables, and stools. All these designs were very popular, except for the "Grasshopper" chair.

Building designs

One of Saarinen's first well-known buildings was the Crow Island School in Winnetka, Illinois, built in 1940.

While still working with his father, Saarinen won a competition in 1948 to design the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, Missouri. The famous Gateway Arch was not finished until the 1960s.

Gateway Arch complete
Saarinen's Gateway Arch in St. Louis

Saarinen's first big project with his father was the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. This building used a modern style with steel and glass, and blue panels. It was built in 1956. Saarinen used models to help design the center, which allowed him to share his ideas and get feedback.

Because the GM Technical Center was so successful, other large American companies asked Saarinen to design their headquarters. These included John Deere, IBM, and CBS. Even though these buildings looked very modern, their insides often had dramatic staircases and furniture designed by Saarinen.

In the 1950s, he also designed buildings for American universities. These include the Noyes dormitory at Vassar College and the Ingalls Rink (an ice rink) and Ezra Stiles College at Yale University.

Saarinen was also part of the group that chose the design for the Sydney Opera House. He played a key role in selecting the winning design by Jørn Utzon.

His architecture company, "Eero Saarinen and Associates," was located in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and later moved to Hamden, Connecticut. Under Eero Saarinen, the firm created many important works. These include the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, the Miller House in Columbus, Indiana, and the TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport. He also designed the main terminal of Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C.. Many of these buildings use special curved shapes in their design.

Saarinen designed the Kresge Auditorium at MIT, which is known for its thin concrete shell. Another building with a thin shell is the Ingalls Rink at Yale University. It has cables connected to a single concrete backbone and is sometimes called "the whale" because of its shape. The TWA Flight Center is seen as one of his best works, showing his artistic style and amazing use of concrete.

Miller House in Columbus
Miller House in Columbus, Indiana

Eero worked with his family to design parts of the Cranbrook campus in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This included the Cranbrook School, Kingswood School, the Cranbrook Art Academy, and the Cranbrook Science Institute. Eero's beautiful stained-glass designs are a key part of these buildings.

After Saarinen's death, his partners, Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo, finished his ten remaining projects, including the St. Louis Arch. The company's name was then changed to "Kevin Roche, John Dinkeloo, and Associates," or Roche-Dinkeloo.

Reputation

Eero Saarinen was chosen as a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1952. He also won the AIA Gold Medal, which is a very high honor in architecture.

Today, Eero Saarinen is considered one of the most important American architects of the 20th century. People have become more interested in his work recently. There have been big exhibitions and new books about him. This is partly because his old office donated his design papers to Yale University. Also, his work, which used many different styles, seems to fit well with today's ideas about design.

Some people criticized him during his lifetime for not having one clear style. But one reason for this was that Saarinen changed his modern design ideas to fit each client and project, as no two projects were ever exactly alike.

Works

Washington Dulles International Airport at Dusk
Main terminal of Dulles International Airport at night
MIT Chapel, Cambridge, Massachusetts - interior
Interior of the MIT Chapel
Svenska Teatern by night
The Swedish Theatre at night
Selected projects

Related pages

  • Eero Saarinen structures
  • Thin-shell structure
  • Tensile architecture
  • List of notable brain tumor patients

An exhibition about Saarinen's work, called Eero Saarinen: Realizing American Utopia, has traveled in Europe and the USA. It was put together by the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, with the Yale School of Architecture and the Museum of Finnish Architecture.

In 1973, the Aline and Eero Saarinen papers were given to the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. These important documents about Eero and Aline Saarinen were later put online in 2006.

  • National Building Museum


Images for kids

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Eero Saarinen para niños

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