1. Born
August 20, 1910
Kirkkonummi, Finland,
Russian Empire
Died
September 1, 1961 (aged 51)
Ann Arbor, Michigan, US
Nationality Finnish American
Awards AIA Gold Medal (1962)
Design
Gateway Arch
Washington Dulles
International Airport
TWA Flight Center
Tulip chair
Eero Saarinen, the son of influential Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen and his second
wife, Louise, was born on his father's 37th birthday, August 20, 1910. They
emigrated to the United States of America in 1923, when Eero was thirteen. He
grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where his father was a teacher at the
Cranbrook Academy of Art and he took courses in sculpture and furniture design
there. Beginning in September 1929, he studied sculpture at the Academia de la
Grande Chaumière in Paris, France. He then went on to study at the Yale School of
Architecture, completing his studies in 1934. Subsequently, he toured Europe and
North Africa for a year and returned for a year to his native Finland, after which he
returned to Cranbrook to work for his father and teach at the academy. He became
a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1940. Saarinen was recruited by Donal
McLaughlin, an architectural school friend from his Yale days, 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”.
INTRODUCTION : EERO SARINEN’S WORK
3. TWA Flight Center
The TWA Flight Center or Trans World Flight Center, opened in 1962 as
a standalone terminal at New York City's John F. Kennedy International
Airport (JFK) for Trans World Airlines.
Though portions of the original complex, designed by Eero Saarinen,
have been demolished, the Saarinen-designed terminal (or head house)
has been renovated, partially encircled by and serving as a ceremonial
entrance to a new adjacent terminal completed in 2008. Together, the
old and new buildings comprise JetBlue Airways' JFK operations and are
known collectively as Terminal 5 or simply T5.
While noted architect Robert A. M. Stern called the evocative Saarinen-
designed TWA Flight Center "Grand Central of the jet age",the
pragmatic new encircling terminal has been called "hyper-efficient" and
a "monument to human throughput".
6. The Tulip chair was designed by Eero Saarinen in
1955 and 1956] for the Knoll company of New
York City.] It was designed primarily as a chair to
match the complementary dining table. The chair
has the smooth lines of modernism and was
experimental with materials for its time.
Tulip chair
Details of the chair
It was used in the famous Star Trek series
7. CROW ISLAND SCHOOL
Crow Island School in Winnetka, Illinois, is an elementary school significant for its
progressive philosophy and its architecture. The design of its building was a
collaboration between the Chicago firm of Perkins, Wheeler and Will and Eero
Saarinen. It currently serves kindergarten through fourth grade students.
The school was established in 1940-41.
The original jungle gym is located here, having been moved from Horace Mann
School in 1940.
The school was awarded the Twenty-five Year Award by the American Institute of
Architects in 1971.
It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1990.
Exterior, Main Entry
Plan
Classroom furniture designed to reinforce
educational concepts. Flexible classroom
furniture scaled for children.
8. GENERAL MOTORS TECHNICAL CENTRE
The GM Technical Center is a General Motors facility in Warren, Michigan. The campus is home to
16,000 GM engineers, designers, and technicians and has been the center of the company's
engineering effort since its inauguration in 1956.
The "Tech Center" was designed by architect Eero Saarinen, with construction beginning in 1949.
The Tech Center includes 330 acres (1.3 km2) with 11 miles (18 km) of roads and 1.1 miles (1.8 km)
of tunnels. It includes 25 main buildings and numerous additional structures including a water
tower and 22-acre (89,000 m2) lake
Site plan The
essential site plan
components of
the corporate
campus are the
central open
space surrounded
by laboratory
buildings
circumscribed by
peripheral
parking and
driveways
The dramatic
circular staircase in
the R&D
Administration
Building,
nicknamed the
“Floating Staircase,”
acts as a large-scale
sculpture for the
lobby space. The
steps seem to
hover in space, held
from above and
below by stainless-
steel suspension
rods .
Main display area of Styling Dome.
View of the centre
Site plan
9. CONCLUSION
Saarinen died while undergoing an operation for a brain tumor at the age of
51. His wife, Aline, coincidentally, would also die of the same ailment. His
partners, Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo, completed his 10 remaining
projects, including the St. Louis Arch.
Eero Saarinen was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects
in 1952. He is also a winner of the AIA Gold Medal in 1962.
Saarinen is now considered one of the masters of American 20th-century
architecture.] There has been a surge of interest in Saarinen's work in recent
years, including a major exhibition and several books. This is partly
because the Roche and Dinkeloo office has donated its 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 Yale's Vincent Scully—for having no
identifiable style; one explanation for this is that Saarinen adapted his
neofuturistic vision to each individual client and project, which were never
exactly the same.
In May 2008, the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. created
an exhibition dedicated solely to the work and life of Eero Saarinen. The
exhibition, titled Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future, was available to the
public until August 2008.
10. “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,”