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Architect · 1910–1961

Eero Saarinen

Eero Saarinen (1910-1961) was a Finnish-American architect and furniture designer, born in Kirkkonummi, Finland, the son of the architect Eliel Saarinen. The family moved to the United States in 1923. He studied sculpture in Paris in 1929 and graduated from the Yale School of Architecture in 1934. He died at 51 during surgery for a brain tumor, and his associates Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo completed several of his projects.

He did not keep to one style; he chose a form and structure for each commission. The General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan (1956), is a campus of steel-and-glass buildings around an artificial lake. At MIT he built the domed Kresge Auditorium and a round brick chapel (both 1955). Ingalls Rink at Yale (1958) has a roof hung on cables from a central concrete arch. For Knoll he designed the Womb chair and the Tulip chair, which stands on a single pedestal.

He won the 1948 competition for the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, a stainless-steel arch 630 feet (192 m) high, built in 1963-1965. The TWA Flight Center at New York's Idlewild (now JFK) Airport (1962) has a thin concrete shell roof and curving interiors. The main terminal of Dulles International Airport near Washington (1962) has a concave roof hung on cables between rows of tilted concrete piers.

known for

  • Gateway Arch
  • TWA Flight Center
  • Dulles International Airport
  • General Motors Technical Center
  • Tulip chair

styles

Stahl House, Los Angeles: an example of Mid-Century Modern Mid-Century Modern c. 1945–1970 Post-and-beam houses with walls of glass, flat or butterfly roofs, and easy flow between indoors and out. TWA Flight Center, New York: an example of Neo-Futurism Neo-Futurism c. 1990–present Sculptural techno-optimism: sweeping white shells, skeletal ribs, and winglike canopies.