Include index

Include Bibliography

Introduction A man of his time --
Son of Eliel; Growing up under the drafting table --
Creating Cranbrook; The Cranbrook schools, Institute of science, and academy of art --
Family business; The education of Eero and the work of Saarinen and Saarinen --
Breaking away; First independent projects and furniture designs --
A break and a breakthrough; The General Motors technical center --
GM progeny; Corporate campuses for IBM, Bell labs, and Deere & Company --
College explosion; Campuses for the modern world at Antioch, Drake, and Brandeis --
The cutting edge on campus; The MIT auditorium and chapel, and the Yale hockey rink --
College buildings and context; Concordia, Chicago, and Morse and Stiles colleges at Yale --
Building the basics in a small midwestern town; A bank, a house, and a church in Columbus, Indiana --
Big ambitions in big cities abroad; American embassies in London and Oslo --
Big ambitions in New York; The Vivian Beaumont repertory theater at Lincoln center and the CBS building --
Symbolizing modernity; The Milwaukee War memorial and the Saint Louis gateway arch --
Taking flight; The Trans world airlines terminal and the Athens and Dulles international airports --
Postscript; The legacy --

For more than half a century people have marveled at the sweeping forms of the Trans World Airlines terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, lined up to enter the St. Louis Gateway Arch, and admired the mid-century modern lines of Knoll’s Womb and Tulip chairs. Yet few outside the architecture profession can name the designer of these wide-ranging projects: the Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen (1910–1961). Saarinen made the cover of TIME magazine in 1956, heralded as a key practitioner of postwar modernism. He counted among his clients several of the world’s most powerful corporations and educational institutions (among them General Motors, IBM, Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and pioneered the development of new materials and building technologies. Yet in the decades following his death, interest in his work waned and much of his archive became difficult to access
This highly anticipated monograph is the first major publication on Eero Saarinen since the early 1960s and fills a significant gap in Saarinen scholarship. Written in an accessible, journalistic style, it will be of interest to architects and students as well as general readers interested in the significant figures of twentieth-century modernism
One of the world's most celebrated architects at the time of his death at the age of 51, the Finnish-born, American-trained master of Modernism designed and built more than thirty-five buildings in his brief lifetime, and more than thirty other projects in collaboration with his father and such celebrated architects as Charles Eames and Ralph Rapson. Saarinen's career began in childhood. As the son of renowned architect Eliel Saarinen, designer of Cranbrook Academy in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Eero grew up in an intellectually charged environment surrounded by art and design. Eero Saarinen trained and practiced with his father until the early 1950s, when he established his own firm and began to design some of the most influential institutions of his day, among them residential colleges and a hockey rink at Yale University, an auditorium and chapel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, American embassies in London and Oslo, and corporate headquarters for General Motors, IBM, and Bell Laboratories. This volume traces Saarinen's life and career from his childhood in Finland to collaboration with his father, through his iconic airport projects of the 1960s, documenting more than sixty commissions and competitions. Extensive illustrations include period photography by Ezra Stoller, Balthazar Korab, and others; rarely seen original sketches, concept drawings, and plans; and more recent color photography.