Poised at the center of America’s post-war expansion, Saarinen created a visual vocabulary for both corporate and college campuses, including headquarters for John Deere, IBM and CBS, and buildings for Vassar College, MIT and his alma mater, Yale. After his father’s death in 1950, Saarinen became principal partner of Saarinen & Associates, and the business thrived – landing him on the cover of Time magazine in 1956. The architect, however, saw his clients as “co-creators” and was dedicated to pushing the established boundaries of modernism, what he called the ”measly ABC.” Clients understood this creative potential. As his career flourished, he was criticized for changing his style depending on his client’s needs and desires. In 1934, Saarinen graduated from the School of Architecture at Yale University. It was at Cranbrook that Eero met Charles Eames, beginning their lifelong collaboration. Settling in Michigan, Eliel co-founded the Cranbrook Academy of Art and designed most of the buildings for the campus – now a National Historic Landmark – while the young Eero worked alongside his father as a student apprentice. Louis, Washington D.C.’s Dulles International Airport Terminal and the Kresge Auditorium on MIT’s campus express his groundbreaking brand of midcentury modernism.īorn in Finland to famed architect Eliel Saarinen and textile designer Loja Saarinen, Eero immigrated with his family to the United States in 1923. Iconic projects like the Gateway Arch in St. Saarinen’s architectural legacy communicates this sentiment of giddy potential and unfettered optimism in post-war America. Kennedy Airport in New York is considered to be his architectural masterpiece.Įero Saarinen died at he age of 51 from a brain tumor in 1961 while he was working on the building of the Dulles International Airport in Washington.“The purpose of architecture is to shelter and enhance man’s life on earth and to fulfill his belief in the nobility of his existence,” said Eero Saarinen in 1959. He easily moved back and forth between the International Style and Expressionism, utilizing a vocabulary of curves and cantilevered forms. Saarinen showed a marked dependence on innovative structures and sculptural forms, but not at the cost of pragmatic considerations. Saarinen developed a remarkable range which depended on color, form and materials. The firm was later renamed in Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates. After his father's death in 1950, Saarinen founded his own architect's office, "Eero Saarinen and Associates".
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He worked full time for the OSS until 1944.
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Thereafter he joined the military service in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) where he was assigned to draw illustrations for bomb disassembly manuals and provide designs for the Situation Room in the White House. In 1940 Saarinen became a naturalized citizen of the U.S.
Eero Saarinen went on to design numerous iconic furniture pieces, most notably for Knoll International. In 1940, they submitted a joint entry to the "Organic Design in Home Furnishings" competition held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Together they experimented on new furniture forms and produced the first designs for furniture made from moulded plywood. It was here that Eero Saarinen met Charles Eames. There he worked in his father's architectural practice and also taught at Cranbrook Academy. After touring Europe and North Africa for a year and a stay in his native Finland, he returned to the United States in 1936. Subsequently, he studied architecture at Yale where he completed his studies in 1934. He grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where his father, the architect Eliel Saarinen, tought at the Cranbrook Academy of Art.Įeero Saarinen studied sculpture at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris, France. He emmigrated with his parents to the United States from finland in 1923 at the age of thirteen. COURTESY YALE UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES / EERO SAARINEN COLLECTION John Deere Headquarters TWA Flight Center Washington Dulles AirportĮero Saarinen (AugSeptember 1, 1961) was a Finnish American architect and furniture designer.
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