ARCHITECT:

EERO SAARINEN
1.0 LIFE & LIFETIME
1.1 BORN
1910, Kirkkonummi, Finland
1.2 DIED
1961, Ann Arbor, Michigan
1.3 FAMILY
Father : Eliel Saarinen (Architect)
born 1873, Rantasalmi, Finland
died 1950, Michigan
1.4 EDUCATION
Furniture & Sculpture Design Crankbrook Academy of Art
Architecture Yale University, 1934
1.0 LIFE & LIFETIME
1.5 PROFESSION
Architect
1.Practiced under father Eliel Saarinen from 1937
2.Own practice started under the name of
Eero Saarinen and Associates, 1950

Furniture Designer
Under his father he designed and entered his furniture
designs in competitions. Later were entered into
production by the Knoll Furniture Company.
1.0 LIFE & LIFETIME
1.6 INFLUENCES
1.Cranckbrook Academy of Art, Michigan
He grew up among the buildings of the university.
Later on completed furniture and sculpture design
from the university.
2.Eliel Saarinen
His father who also taught in the Cranckbrook
Academy. His father was a propagandist of Art
Nouveau at that time.
1.0 LIFE & LIFETIME

3.Yale University
His formal education of architecture was completed
there.
4.Travel
Visited 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.
2.0 PHILOSOPHY
2.1 ARCHITECTURAL THEORIES/ STYLES/ PRINCIPLES/
CONCEPT/ BELIEF

The Company Headquarters were designed very much in

the rationalist MIESIAN STYLE, in steel and glass.

Individual structures like TWA flight Centre and also his

furniture designs were ORGANIC or ABSTRACT
EXPRESSIONIST.

His design of USA embassy in London is considered to be

an example of CLASSICAL ECLECTISM.
2.0 PHILOSOPHY
He was criticized by Vincet Scully in his own time for
having no identifiable style.

Saarinen's work can be said to fit in with present-day

concerns about pluralism of styles.

‘An explanation for this is that Saarinen adapted his

modernist vision to each individual client and project,
which were never exactly the same.’
2.0 PHILOSOPHY
2.2 QUOTES

“ I feel strongly that modern architecture is in danger of

falling into a mold too quickly- too rigid a mold. What
was once a great hope for a great new period of
architecture has some how become an automatic
application of the same formula over and over again
everywhere. I feel, therefore, a certain responsibility to
examine problems with the specific enthusiasm of
bringing out h particular problem the particular solution…
in this sense, I align myself humbly with Le Corbusier
and against Mies van der Rohe.”
3.0 WORKS
3.1 MAJOR ARCHITECTURAL WORKS

3.1.1 JEFFERSON NATIONAL

EXPANSION MEMORIAL

Took first prize in the

design competition.

Place: St Louis, Missouri

Time: 1948-1960
3.0 WORKS
3.1.2 GENERAL MOTORS
TECHNICAL CENTRE

Place: Warren, Michigan

Time: 1949-1955
Style: Rationalist
Miesian Style
Materials: Steel and Glass

Saarinen employed a consistent vocabulary of metal and

glass curtain walls for the long elevations, and colourful,
glazed brick walls on the short ends of simple
rectangular volumes.
3.0 WORKS
3.1.3 TWA TERMINAL

Place: John F.Kennedy

Airport, New York
Time: 1956-1962
Style: Expressionist
Materials: Concrete, Glass
and Metal
3.0 WORKS
3.1.4 DULLES TERMINAL

Place: Chantilly,
Virginia
Time: 1958-1963
Style: Expressionist
Materials: Concrete,
Glass and
Metal
PLANS
VIEWS OF THE
TERMINAL
3.0 CRONOLOGY OF WORKS
TIME WORK REMARK
1940 Chair designed together with Charles Won first
Eames for the "Organic prize
Design in Home Furnishings"
competition
1948 Jefferson National Expansion, Won first
Memorial, St. Louis. prize, not
completed
till 1960

1949- General motors technical centre First major

1955 architectural
commission
3.0 CRONOLOGY OF WORKS
TIME WORK REMARK
1949- General motors technical centre First major
1955 architectural
commission
1953 Kersge Auditorium, MIT

1955 MIT Chapel, Cambridge

1956- John F. Kennedy Airport, New York The most

1962 international
ly acclaimed
work of his.
TIME WORK REMARK
1958- Dulles terminal Another free
1963 flowing
concrete
shell.
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.