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Eero Saarinen
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Eero Saarinen (August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish American architect and product designer of the 20th century famous for varying his style according to the demands of the project : simple, sweeping, arching structural curves or machine-like rationalism.
Saarinen, who was born in Hvitträsk, coincidentally shared the same birthday as his father, Eliel Saarinen . Saarinen emigrated to the United States of America in 1923 when he was thirteen years old .
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Eero Saarinen (August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish American architect and product designer of the 20th century famous for varying his style according to the demands of the project : 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 . Saarinen emigrated to the United States of America in 1923 when he was thirteen years old . He grew up within the community of the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, where his father taught. Saarinen studied under his father and took courses in sculpture and furniture design. He had a close relationship with fellow students Charles and Ray Eames, and became good friends with Florence (Schust) Knoll. Beginning in September 1929, he studied sculpture at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, France. He then went on to study at the Yale School of Architecture, 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 a naturalized citizen of the U.S. in 1940. Saarinen was recruited by his friend, who was also an architect, to join the military service in the Office 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 . 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 collaborator Charles 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 Hans Knoll, who married Saarinen family friend Florence (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 the Jefferson 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 included John Deere, IBM, and CBS. 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, and Ezra Stiles College at Yale 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 by Jørn 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 and Robert Swansen from the late 1930s until Eliel's death in 1950. The firm was located in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan until 1961 when the practice was moved to Hamden, Connecticut. Under Eero Saarinen, the firm carried out many of its most important works, including the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (Gateway Arch) in St. Louis, Missouri, the TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport, and the main terminal of Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C.. Many of these projects use catenary curves in their structural designs. One of the best-known thin-shell concrete structures in America is the Kresge Auditorium (MIT), which was designed by Saarinen. Another thin-shell structure that he created is the Ingalls 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 and John 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", or Roche-Dinkeloo.
Reputation
Eero Saarinen was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1952. He is also a winner of the AIA 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, now Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana
- The Law School at the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.
- The Miller House, Columbus, Indiana.
- Berkshire Music Center, Opera Shed Tanglewood, Massachusetts.
- Gateway Arch, St. Louis, Missouri
- TWA Terminal at JFK International Airport
- Washington Dulles International Airport
- Kresge Auditorium and MIT Chapel at MIT
- Bell Labs in Holmdel, New Jersey
- Case Study House #9, the John Entenza House (collaboration with Charles Eames)
- CBS Building (Black Rock) New York
- Vivian Beaumont Theater in Lincoln Center, New York
- General Motors Technical Center, Warren, Michigan
- US Embassies in Oslo and London
- North Christian Church in Columbus, Indiana
- Law School and Woodward Court dormitory (demolished 2002) at the University of Chicago
- Kleinhans Music Hall, Buffalo, New York; designed in collaboration with his father Eliel Saarinen
- Ezra Stiles College, Morse College, and Ingalls Rink (affectionately known as "The Whale") at Yale University
- Noyes House dormitory at Vassar College. Its lounge is affectionately called the Jetsons lounge because of its curved architecture.
- Hill College House at the University of Pennsylvania. Originally a women's dormitory, the building was made with a "drawbridge" to symbolically keep men out.
- IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York
- IBM Rochester, a plant in Rochester, Minnesota
- John Deere World Headquarters, Moline, Illinois
- The "Tulip chair", popularized by its use on the original Star Trek television series (1966-69).
- The "Womb" chair
- North Campus, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Earl V. Moore Building, housing the University of Michigan School of Music
- East Terminal at Ellinikon 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 at Drake University in Des Moines, IA
- Firestone Baars Chapel at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri.
See also
External links
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- Illustrated article about Eero Saarinen
- School building designed by Eero Saarinen
- at the Yale University Library, contains 1296 images and drawings from Saarinen's archives
- , Yale University Library
- The 50th Anniversary Exhibition of the Museum of Finnish Architecture
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