Eero Saarinen

Eero Saarinen (1910-1961), Finnish-American architect and designer, one of the leading architects of the mid-20th century. He produced a highly eclectic body of work that built upon influences ranging from the rectilinear glass-and-steel structures of the International Style to the free-form concrete buildings pioneered by Pier Luigi Nervi, Le Corbusier, and earlier 20th-century architects. His university buildings, corporate headquarters, airport terminals, and embassies are alike only in their bold design and large scale.

Saarinen was born August 20, 1910, in Kirkkonummi, Finland, son of the renowned architect Eliel Saarinen. His family immigrated in 1923 to the United States, where he graduated from the Yale School of Architecture in 1934 and subsequently went into partnership with his father. Starting in 1940, in collaboration with Charles Eames, he designed furniture, often imitated, that was outstanding for its elegant use of molded plastic and plywood.

Saarinen's principal architectural work was done after World War II. His first major commission, the General Motors Technical Center (1948-1957), Warren, Michigan, a large complex of five long, low, rectangular buildings and contrasting domes and cylinders, went beyond the obvious influence of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Albert Kahn to include distinct decorative elements such as multicolored glazed bricks and fanciful staircases. At the same time, in a completely different mode, he designed (1948) the prizewinning Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (Gateway Arch; 1965) in St. Louis, a monumental stainless-steel arch 192 m (630 ft) high, in the form of a great catenary (elliptical) curve.

At his best in designing large unconfined spaces, Saarinen produced in the 1950s several spectacular domed structures—including the triangular-roofed Kresge Auditorium (1955, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and the parabolic Ingalls Hockey Rink (1959, Yale University)—culminating in the swooping winglike lines of the TWA Terminal (1956-1962, Kennedy International Airport, New York). His design for the Dulles International Airport (1958-1962) introduced, in addition to a concrete slab roof suspended on cables, the innovative concept of a vehicular lounge. Saarinen preferred to design institutional buildings; his only skyscraper, the austere CBS Building (1960-1964), was New York's first reinforced concrete tower. He died in Ann Arbor, Michigan, September 1, 1961; the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects, awarded posthumously in 1962, was accepted by his widow, the art critic and commentator Aline B. Saarinen.