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Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future
The most authoritative book to date on the life and work of Eero Saarinen, one of the most influential architects of the 20th century
From the swooping concrete vaults of the TWA Terminal at JFK Airport to the 630-foot-tall Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the iconic designs of Eero Saarinen (1910–1961) captured the aspirations and values of mid-20th-century America. Potent expressions of national power, these and other Saarinen-designed structures—including the GM Technical Center, Dulles International Airport, and John Deere headquarters—helped create the international image of the United States in the decades following World War II. Eero Shaping the Future offers a new and wide-ranging look at the entire scope of Saarinen’s career. This is the first book on Saarinen to incorporate significant research and materials from the newly available archives of his office, and includes the most complete portfolio of Saarinen's projects to date—a chronological survey of more than 100 built and unbuilt works, previously unpublished photographs, plans, and working drawings. Lavishly illustrated, this major study shows how Saarinen gave his structures an expressive dimension and helped introduce modern architecture to the mainstream of American practice. In his search for a richer and more varied modern architecture, Saarinen became one of the most prolific and controversial practitioners of his time.
Published in association with the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, the National Building Museum, Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Finnish Architecture
Exhibition Kunsthalle Helsinki, Finland (October 6 – December 6, 2006)
National Building Museum, Washington, D.C. (May 3 – August 23, 2008) Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (November 17, 2007 – March 30, 2008) Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University, St. Louis (January 31 – April 26, 2009) Yale University Art Gallery and Yale University School of Architecture, New Haven, Connecticut (Spring 2010) The National Museum of Art, Architecture, and Design, Oslo (January 20 – March 18, 2007) CIVA, The International Centre for Urbanism, Architecture, and Landscape, Brussels (April 19 – September 16, 2007) Minneapolis Institute of Art and Walker Arts Center (September 14 – January 4, 2009)
From the swooping concrete vaults of the TWA Terminal at JFK Airport to the 630-foot-tall Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the iconic designs of Eero Saarinen (1910–1961) captured the aspirations and values of mid-20th-century America. Potent expressions of national power, these and other Saarinen-designed structures—including the GM Technical Center, Dulles International Airport, and John Deere headquarters—helped create the international image of the United States in the decades following World War II. Eero Shaping the Future offers a new and wide-ranging look at the entire scope of Saarinen’s career. This is the first book on Saarinen to incorporate significant research and materials from the newly available archives of his office, and includes the most complete portfolio of Saarinen's projects to date—a chronological survey of more than 100 built and unbuilt works, previously unpublished photographs, plans, and working drawings. Lavishly illustrated, this major study shows how Saarinen gave his structures an expressive dimension and helped introduce modern architecture to the mainstream of American practice. In his search for a richer and more varied modern architecture, Saarinen became one of the most prolific and controversial practitioners of his time.
Published in association with the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, the National Building Museum, Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Finnish Architecture
Exhibition Kunsthalle Helsinki, Finland (October 6 – December 6, 2006)
National Building Museum, Washington, D.C. (May 3 – August 23, 2008) Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (November 17, 2007 – March 30, 2008) Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University, St. Louis (January 31 – April 26, 2009) Yale University Art Gallery and Yale University School of Architecture, New Haven, Connecticut (Spring 2010) The National Museum of Art, Architecture, and Design, Oslo (January 20 – March 18, 2007) CIVA, The International Centre for Urbanism, Architecture, and Landscape, Brussels (April 19 – September 16, 2007) Minneapolis Institute of Art and Walker Arts Center (September 14 – January 4, 2009)
- GenresArchitecture
464 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 17, 2023
Eero Saarinen (1910-1961) was the most successful and important American architect of his time, the author of such major projects as the structurally and expressively brilliant Jefferson Arch in St. Louis (1948) the General Motors technical centre in Detroit (1956), the tensely miesian IBM headquarters in Rochester, Minnesota (1956), the organic Miller Cottage in Ontario (1952), perched on a rocky outcrop above a river, the other Miller house at Columbus, Indian (1953-7) with its gardens by Dan Kiley - quite different and utterly serene in spirit - and then last but not least, the famous TWA air terminal in New York (1956-62). This book brings to the public his practice archive - 500 rolls of drawings and over 100 boxes of other material - donated to Yale University by former associate Kevin Roche. The book also includes an interesting round-table discussion between Roche and others who worked with Saarinen: Robert Venturi, Harold Roth, and Cesar Pelli.
Thanks to a successful father (the important architect Eliel Saarinen) Eero was able to start his career at the top. His wife Aline got his work published in “Vogue” and “Look”, and in 1956 one of his many influential friends, Henry Luce, put him on the cover of “Time”. But it was not only this media-savvy cleverness that made Saarinen America’s favourite mid-century architect; thanks to Eliel he knew how to freely and eclectically manipulate architectural form, and had learned a practical attitude to construction that empowered him to be inventive about technology. Having started as a furniture designer whose lifelong friends included Charles Eames and Florence Knoll, he was also able to think about buildings as amenable interior places where everyday life, whether in the workplace or for leisure, would be ennobled and enhanced. He was interested in conveying an emotion or feel with each project, and changed his style from job to job in order to find the right way of finding that emotion; this usually involved a long painstaking process of trial and error.
His lack of commitment to any particular style, and his drive to make each building a comfort zone in which people would just be happy and contented, infuriated modernist critics. Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen and Donald Albrecht write here that the “exuberant stylishness” of his work was “more elegant than earnest” and made him “one of the most controversial architects of his time”. But Saarinen did have a serious side; one of his closest friends, J. Irwin Miller of the Cummins Engine Co., supported trade unions in his factories, pulled his company out of South Africa because of apartheid, and was active in the Civil Rights movement; Martin Luther King called Miller “the most progressive businessman in America”.
Saarinen’s relationships with such clients were everything to him and when (as occasionally happened) the relationship was not particularly warm or humane, his projects were unsuccessful. When that happened, the critics were quick to jump in with accusations of cultural irresponsibility. For the Italian critic Bruno Zevi, the circular brick chapel and concrete shell auditorium complex at MIT (1956) confirmed Saarinen as “a mannerist” who (no less) “contributed to the decline of modern architecture”; for the American critic Vincent Scully the Yale hockey rink (1956-58) embodied “exhibitionism, structural pretension, and self-defeating urbanistic arrogance”. The disappointing American embassy in London was described by the English architect Peter Smithson as “frozen and pompous”.
These positives and negatives of Saarinen’s architectural output have already been examined in another excellent 2005 monograph by Jayne Merkel. This book by Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen adds little that is significant in the way of critical analysis, but thanks to the new archive material - hundreds of illustrations to which Merkel did not have access - and detailed essays that enrich our understanding of some individual projects, it gives a more articulated picture of Saarinen at work at a time of economic boom in America, when innovative industries like IBM, GM, and John Deere were spearheading great changes in technology.
Saarinen’s key role as their architect is well explained in the historical and factual essays, but when we come to academic architecture critics like Scully, we really are in deep water. Trying to aesthetically decode the language of Saarinen’s sensuous, soaring TWA terminal, Scully can offer nothing more meaningful than a frankly absurd, untenable sub-jungian hypothesis about life, death, and rites of passage. That is part of a more general difficulty Scully has in understanding Saarinen’s constant changes of style from job to job. Amid strange irrelevancies about Louis Sullivan, Wallace Stevens, Rome and Versailles, he tries to construct a critical framework that just doesn’t stand up. Philip Johnson is simpler and more eloquent about it: “can’t we just wander aimlessly? Let’s just enjoy the multiplicity of styles”. The best essay is by a businessman, Will Miller, CEO of Irwin Financial Corporation, who without the ponderousness of the heavyweight academic, perfectly captures the style and meaning of Saarinen’s houses.
What makes this book valuable is the beautiful drawings, photographs, and the pictures of Saarinen and assistants clambering over enormous study models of the St. Louis Arch or the TWA terminal. The working details and blueprints, such as those for the Bell House at New Hope, Pennsylvania (1941), are logical, clear, and thorough; one can look at them for hours. Not many architecture books present us with the complete archive of a famous practice from beginning to end. This one enables us to really appreciate how Saarinen’s buildings were conceived and put together, and the creative vision that drove him to his tragic death at only 51.
Thanks to a successful father (the important architect Eliel Saarinen) Eero was able to start his career at the top. His wife Aline got his work published in “Vogue” and “Look”, and in 1956 one of his many influential friends, Henry Luce, put him on the cover of “Time”. But it was not only this media-savvy cleverness that made Saarinen America’s favourite mid-century architect; thanks to Eliel he knew how to freely and eclectically manipulate architectural form, and had learned a practical attitude to construction that empowered him to be inventive about technology. Having started as a furniture designer whose lifelong friends included Charles Eames and Florence Knoll, he was also able to think about buildings as amenable interior places where everyday life, whether in the workplace or for leisure, would be ennobled and enhanced. He was interested in conveying an emotion or feel with each project, and changed his style from job to job in order to find the right way of finding that emotion; this usually involved a long painstaking process of trial and error.
His lack of commitment to any particular style, and his drive to make each building a comfort zone in which people would just be happy and contented, infuriated modernist critics. Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen and Donald Albrecht write here that the “exuberant stylishness” of his work was “more elegant than earnest” and made him “one of the most controversial architects of his time”. But Saarinen did have a serious side; one of his closest friends, J. Irwin Miller of the Cummins Engine Co., supported trade unions in his factories, pulled his company out of South Africa because of apartheid, and was active in the Civil Rights movement; Martin Luther King called Miller “the most progressive businessman in America”.
Saarinen’s relationships with such clients were everything to him and when (as occasionally happened) the relationship was not particularly warm or humane, his projects were unsuccessful. When that happened, the critics were quick to jump in with accusations of cultural irresponsibility. For the Italian critic Bruno Zevi, the circular brick chapel and concrete shell auditorium complex at MIT (1956) confirmed Saarinen as “a mannerist” who (no less) “contributed to the decline of modern architecture”; for the American critic Vincent Scully the Yale hockey rink (1956-58) embodied “exhibitionism, structural pretension, and self-defeating urbanistic arrogance”. The disappointing American embassy in London was described by the English architect Peter Smithson as “frozen and pompous”.
These positives and negatives of Saarinen’s architectural output have already been examined in another excellent 2005 monograph by Jayne Merkel. This book by Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen adds little that is significant in the way of critical analysis, but thanks to the new archive material - hundreds of illustrations to which Merkel did not have access - and detailed essays that enrich our understanding of some individual projects, it gives a more articulated picture of Saarinen at work at a time of economic boom in America, when innovative industries like IBM, GM, and John Deere were spearheading great changes in technology.
Saarinen’s key role as their architect is well explained in the historical and factual essays, but when we come to academic architecture critics like Scully, we really are in deep water. Trying to aesthetically decode the language of Saarinen’s sensuous, soaring TWA terminal, Scully can offer nothing more meaningful than a frankly absurd, untenable sub-jungian hypothesis about life, death, and rites of passage. That is part of a more general difficulty Scully has in understanding Saarinen’s constant changes of style from job to job. Amid strange irrelevancies about Louis Sullivan, Wallace Stevens, Rome and Versailles, he tries to construct a critical framework that just doesn’t stand up. Philip Johnson is simpler and more eloquent about it: “can’t we just wander aimlessly? Let’s just enjoy the multiplicity of styles”. The best essay is by a businessman, Will Miller, CEO of Irwin Financial Corporation, who without the ponderousness of the heavyweight academic, perfectly captures the style and meaning of Saarinen’s houses.
What makes this book valuable is the beautiful drawings, photographs, and the pictures of Saarinen and assistants clambering over enormous study models of the St. Louis Arch or the TWA terminal. The working details and blueprints, such as those for the Bell House at New Hope, Pennsylvania (1941), are logical, clear, and thorough; one can look at them for hours. Not many architecture books present us with the complete archive of a famous practice from beginning to end. This one enables us to really appreciate how Saarinen’s buildings were conceived and put together, and the creative vision that drove him to his tragic death at only 51.
September 6, 2007
From this book I learned to get a contract in writing before doing any work. Also, to reiterate the words of my construction management professor in undergrad: "[in business] you have no friends"
September 23, 2017
An interesting book about one of my favorite "modern" architects. Quite a lot of fantastic photos of his amazing buildings and very interesting text as well.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews