Saarinen's Legacy:
Tulips & Arches
Title: United States Jefferson National Expansion Memorial
St. Louis, Missouri, under construction, 1965
Architect / Artist: Eero Saarinen (1910-1961)
Image Courtesy Collections of Arteaga Photos Ltd.
Gateway Arch and Tulip chairs are the two designs commonly associated with Finland-born American
architect Eero Saarinen.
Eero Saarinen:
Shaping the Future
Walker Art Center
and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
September 13, 2008-January 4, 2009.
A retrospective of Saarinen's work examining his legacy is currently on a four year
international tour of Europe and the USA. Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future
recently opened in Minneapolis at the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
Title: Sketch of David S. Ingalls Hockey Rink
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, circa 1953
Architect/Artist: Eero Saarinen (1910-1961)
Image Courtesy Eero Saarinen Collection. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University.
Saarinen was trained as both a sculptor and an architect. He spent time in Paris
at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, then it was on to New Haven, Connecticut where he studied
architecture at Yale University.
Title: Eero Saarinen with A Combined Living-Dining-Room-Study project model,
created for Architectural Forum magazine, circa 1937
Photographer: Unknown
Image Courtesy Eero Saarinen Collection. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University.
Saarinen designed nearly 50 buildings including airports, embassies, academic campuses, churches,
private homes and memorials. Notably Saarinen had a different style for each job; a tactic which
earned him much criticism at the the time.
Architecture was in his blood. His father Eliel was the architect responsible
for the main train station
in Helsinki, Finland. His mother Louise (Loja) was both a sculptor and a textile designer. His sister
EvaLisa (Pipsan) was an interior decorator and a designer.
The Saarinen family emigrated to the USA in 1923 when Eero was thirteen. Two years later
Eliel was commissioned to design the campus for the Cranbrook Educational Community. The entire
Saarinen family contributed to the designs. The work and completed project was said to be an important
touchstone throughout Eero's career.
Father and son had a long collaboration of ideas lasting until Eliel's death in 1950. The son
didn't create his own architecture firm, Eero Saarinen and Associates, until after his father's passing.
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Title: Patent drawing for pedestal chairs, June 7, 1960
Artist: Eero Saarinen (1910-1961)
Image Courtesy Eero Saarinen Collection.
Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University.
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Among Saarinen's contributions to American architecture were his innovations. He
was the first to use selfrusting Corten steel. Eero designed the first mirror glass
curtain wall and the world’s thinnest exterior wall panel. He pioneered the corporate campus
beginning with the General Motors Technical Center in suburban Detroit.
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Shaping the Future features never before seen sketches, working drawings, models, photographs,
furnishings, films, and other ephemera from various archives and private collections.
Eero Saarinen:
Shaping the Future
Minneapolis Institute of Arts and at the
Walker Art Center:
September 13, 2008 - January 4, 2009
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum:
January 31 to April 26, 2009
Museum of the City of New York:
November 8, 2009 - January 31, 2010
Yale University Art Gallery and at the
Yale School of Architecture:
February 13 2010 to May 2 2010
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