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#Architect saarinen first name free#
In buildings such as the Kleinhans Music Hall (1938–41, with Kidd and Kidd) in Buffalo, New York, and Crow Island School (1940, with Perkins, Wheeler and Will of Chicago) in Winnetka, Illinois, as well as first place in the 1939 national competition for the Smithsonian Art Gallery (unexecuted), the Saarinens became synonymous with a progressive style free of the radical overtones of the International Style.Ĭharles Eames was among the younger designers with whom Eero collaborated, and their molded-plywood furniture designs for the “Organic Design in Home Furnishings” competition and exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (1941) established their position among a new generation of modernists. He briefly worked as a designer for the office of Norman Bel Geddes on the General Motors “Futurama” building for the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Through small commissions, independent competition entries, and collaborations, he achieved national recognition for his American modernism.
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On his return to the United States in 1936, Saarinen entered into a partnership with his father separate from Cranbrook (Eliel Saarinen and Eero Saarinen, 1936–42).
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Thus began his own synthesis of historic architecture and the progressive trends of technological innovation and its expression. With the award of a traveling fellowship, Saarinen visited Europe and the Near East and then worked in Finland, where he came in more direct contact with European modernism. He entered Yale University in the fall of 1931 and completed Yale’s five-year program in three years. After his return to Cranbrook, Saarinen developed furniture designs from 1930 to 1931 that concurrently embraced a conscious variety of styles, from handicraft to an industrial aesthetic. Saarinen attended high school at a special progressive school housed within the University of Michigan’s School of Education (then nearby Baldwin High School in Birmingham, Michigan) and apprenticed in the Cranbrook architectural office from 1928 to 1931, taking eight months in Paris, France, beginning in late 1929 to study sculpture at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. The younger Saarinen was born in Kirkkonummi (Kyrksläte), Finland (then Russia) and grew up in the secluded retreat of “Hvitträsk,” the home/studio where Eliel Saarinen entertained many of Finland’s intellectuals and artists and produced ideas in architecture and planning. BIOGRAPHY / TIMELINE / FURTHER READING / RELATEDĮero Saarinen shared the same date of birth with his famous architect father, Eliel (20 August 18) both the elder and the younger Saarinen were and are very likely to remain the only father-son duo recipients of the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects.
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