Eero Saarinen

Eero Saarinen was born in Kirkkonummi on August 20, 1910. He moved to the United States from Finland in 1923, graduated from Yale in 1934 and then studied at the Cranbrook Institute of Architecture and Design, of which his father was the administrator. Here he devoted himself to the research of new technologies in the use of materials, in particular in the molding of fiberglass. One of his major works was the General Motors technical center in Warren (Michigan), finished in 1955. After these beginnings of eclectic research between Scandinavian-derived rationalism and romanticism, Saarinen made a name for himself in the new American architecture with Yale Hockey. Rink in New Haven, completed in 1958, a kind of immense dinosaur in reinforced concrete, expressive not only in form but also in interior space. This spatial and expressionistic conquest was confirmed in the Dulles airport in Washington, but above all in its masterpiece:the TWA terminal in the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York (finished posthumously in 1962), a very light and expressive bundle of wings in flight placed on the ground, in which the interior space is shaped and modeled in every detail. During his long collaboration with Knoll, he designed many important furnishing elements, including the"Grasshopper"armchair and pouf (1946), the chair and the"Womb"pouf (1948), the"Womb"sofa (1950), side and armchairs (1948-1950) and his most famous group"Tulip"or"Pedestal"(1956), which included chairs, armchairs, tables tables, coffee tables and a stool. All of these projects were very successful, except the"Grasshopper"lounge chair, which nevertheless remained in production until 1965. He married Aline Saarinen, who was a noted art historian, and died prematurely of a brain tumor in 51 years old in Ann Arbor, Michigan on September 1, 1961.