EERO SAARINENAugust 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961

Biography Eero Saarinen was born in 1910,in Finland. Eero Saarinen was the youngest child of the famous

architect Eliel Saarinen, who explained that his son was "born practically on the drafting board.“

His mother loja was a gifted sculptor and architectural model maker.

Eero grew up in a household where drawing and painting were taken very seriously, and a devotion to quality and professionalism were instilled in him at an early age.

He was taught that each object should be designed in its "next largest context - a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, environment in a city plan.“

In 1923,the saaoinens emigrated to USA, where he began to study sculpture and furniture design.

Saarinen graduated from high school in 1929 and went to Paris to study sculpture.

Between 1930 and 1934, Eero studied at the Yale School of Architecture.

From 1939 to 1947 he worked for his father's firm. After working with his father on a number of

projects, Eero Saarinen had a chance to express his own philosophy when he entered the 1947 architectural competition for Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.

This was his first opportunity to establish himself as an independent architect, and he set out to design a monument not only to Thomas Jefferson and the nation, but also to the modern age.

For him, "The major concern ...was to create a monument which would have lasting significance and would be a landmark of our time... Neither an obelisk nor a rectangular box nor a dome seemed right on this site or for this purpose. But here, at the edge of the Mississippi River, a great arch did seem right."

Interest Towards Furniture Designing • Saarinen liked to design furniture from his teenage.• In late 1930s ,Experimenting with Charles Eames, Eero

Saarinen co-developed new furniture forms and the first designs for furniture of molded laminated wood.

• Saarinen developed a remarkable range which depended on colour, form and material.

• In 1941 Saarinen won two prizes in the New York Museum of Modern Art competition for functional furniture design for pieces on which he and Charles Eames had collaborated.

• Saarinen continued to design innovative chairs.• After winning the functional furniture design contest he

began working on "organic" chair designs, resulting in the "womb" chair, which eased the sitter into a fetal position and was considered by many to be the most comfortable chair ever made.

Work Philosophy He was famous for his varying style

according to demand of the project simple, sweeping, arching structural curves.

ACCORDING TO EERO SAARINEN: “ The purpose of architecture is to

shelter and enhance man’s life on earth and to fulfill his belief in the nobility of his existence.”

ARCHITECTURAL WORKS:-• General Motors Technical Centre, Michigan• Kresge Auditorium and Chapel, MIT, Cambridge• Ingalls Hockey Rink, Yale University, New Haven• Samuel F.B.Morse and Ezra stiles Colleges, Yale

University, New Haven• Irwin Miller Residence, Columbus, Indiana • Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, St. Louis• TWA Terminal for Trans world airways, Kennedy Airport,

New York• Dulles Airport, Chantilly• Thomas J Watson Research Centre, IBM, New York• Law School, University of Chicago• Deere and Company Headquarters, Moline• Bell Laboratories, Holmdel• Columbia Broadcasting system Headquarters, New York

Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, St. Louis

• Architectural style -Structural expressionism

• Location-Memorial Drive, St. Louis, Missouri, United States.

• Height-630 ft (192 m)

• Architect-Eero Saarinen

• Architecture firm-Saarinen and Associates

• Structural engineer-Hannskarl Bandel

Structural Details• Both the width and height of the arch are 630 feet

(192 m).• The cross-sections of its legs are equilateral

triangles, narrowing from 54 feet (16.5 m) per side at the base to 17 feet (5.2 m) at the top.

• Each wall consists of a stainless steel skin covering a sandwich of two carbon-steel walls with reinforced concrete in the middle from ground level to 300 feet (91 m), with carbon steel to the peak.

• The arch is hollow to accommodate a unique tram system that takes visitors to an observation deck at the top.

• The structural load is supported by a stressed-skin design.

• The arch is resistant to earthquakes and is designed to sway up to 9 inches (23 cm) in either direction while withstanding winds up to 150 miles per hour (240 km/h).

Transportation & Observation Area• Entrance to the Arch is from the underground George

B. Hartzog, Jr. Visitor Center, located directly beneath it.

• Visitors are carried from the lobby level below to the observation platform at the top of the Arch by a unique conveyance system - a 40- passenger train made up of eight five-passenger capsules in each leg.

• The observation platform is 65ft X 7ft, with plate-glass windows providing views in the east and west directions.

• There is also a conventional maintenance elevator in each leg as far as the 372-foot level, and stairways with 1,076 steps in each leg rise from the base to the top of the Arch. The elevators and stairways are for maintenance and emergency use only.

• These compartments individually retain an appropriate level by periodically rotating every 5 degrees, which allows them to maintain the correct orientation

• The car doors have narrow glass panes, allowing passengers to see the interior stairways and structure of the Arch during the trip.

Irwin Miller Residence, Columbus, Indiana• Architectural Style- Modernism

• Location: Columbus, Indiana

• Architect: Eero Saarinen

• Governing body: Private

• Area: approx. 6,900 sq.ft

• The Miller House is one of very few single family homes that Saarinen designed

• The Miller house was meant to be a year-round residence, rather than just a vacation home. The Millers wanted a home in which they could entertain heads of states and titans of industry.

• The Miller House epitomizes the modernist architectural tradition developed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe with its open and flowing layout, flat roof, and stone and glass walls.

Design Characteristics• Within the interior of the home, four non-

public areas branch off from a central space, which features a conversation pit.

• These four branches include rooms for parents, children, guests and servants, and utilitarian areas (kitchen and laundry).

• The plan avoids a conventional axial organization, instead displacing the hierarchy of the rooms with a more egalitarian and functional arrangement.

• A grid pattern of skylights, supported by sixteen free-standing cruciform steel columns, show concern for the play of light and shadow.

A cylindrical fireplace, a 50-foot long storage wall, and the sunken conversation pit are key elements of the modern design of the central space.

TWA Terminal for Trans world airways, Kennedy Airport, New York

• Architectural style: Modern Movement, Expressionistic

• Location: John F. Kennedy International Airport, Queens, New York

• Area:17.6 acres (7.1 ha)

• Architect: Eero Saarinen and Associates

• Saarinen received AIA Gold Medal for this project

Design Features• Eero Saarinen and his Detroit-based firm were

commissioned in 1956 to design the TWA Flight Center and given the directive by the client to capture the spirit of flight. By doing so the building took form of a huge bird with wings spread in flight.

• Prominent wing-shaped thin shell roof over the main terminal (head house).

• Unusual tube-shaped departure-arrival corridors originally wrapped in red carpet — and critical to the spirit of the design .

• Expansive windows that highlighted departing and arriving jets.

• The concrete shell's evocative shape — which inspired Saarinen to develop special, curved edge ceramic tile to conform to the curvilinear shapes

The building designed to be the embodiment of flight.Saarinen developed the form with reinforced concrete. Itsexpressive forms allow the building to stand out against itscontemporaries. The fluid nature of concrete was pushed tothe extreme in creating the bird-like forms. The concretealso made a solid choice since the building would be subjectto millions of travelers a year. The materials had to bedurable.

Model of TWA by Eero Saarinen

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