In the 1950s he began to receive more commissions from American universities for campus designs and individual buildings these include the Noyes dormitory at Vassar, Hill College House at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as an ice rink, Ingalls Rink, Ezra Stiles & Morse Colleges at Yale University, the MIT Chapel and neighboring Kresge Auditorium at MIT and the University of Chicago Law School building and grounds. Despite their rationality, however, the interiors usually contained more dramatic sweeping staircases, as well as furniture designed by Saarinen, such as the Pedestal Series. With the success of the scheme, Saarinen was then invited by other major American corporations such as John Deere, IBM, and CBS to design their new headquarters or other major corporate buildings. The GM Technical Center was constructed in 1956, with Saarinen using models, which allowed him to share his ideas with others and gather input from other professionals. The first major work by Saarinen, in collaboration with his father, was the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, which follows the rationalist design Miesian style, incorporating steel and glass, but with the added accent of panels in two shades of blue. One of Saarinen's earliest works to receive international acclaim is the Crow Island School in Winnetka, Illinois (1940). The memorial wasn't completed until the 1960s. All of these designs were highly successful except for the 'Grasshopper' lounge chair, which, although in production through 1965, was not a big success.įurther attention came also while Saarinen was still working for his father when he took first prize in the 1948 competition for the design of the Gateway Arch National Park (then known as the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial) in St. The 'Tulip Chair', like all other Saarinen chairs, was taken into production by the Knoll furniture company, founded by Hans Knoll, who married Saarinen family friend Florence (Schust) Knoll.ĭuring his long association with Knoll he designed many important pieces of furniture including the 'Grasshopper' lounge chair and ottoman (1946), the 'Womb' chair and ottoman (1948), the 'Womb' settee (1950), side and armchairs (1948–1950), and his most famous 'Tulip' or 'Pedestal' group (1956), which featured side and armchairs, dining, coffee and side tables, as well as a stool. Saarinen first received critical recognition, while still working for his father, for a chair designed together with Charles Eames for the 'Organic Design in Home Furnishings' competition in 1940, for which they received first prize. After that, he toured Europe and North Africa for a year and returned for a year to his native Finland for one year, and returned to Cranbrook to work for his father's firm 'Saarinen, Swansen and Associates', and teach at the academy.

He then went on to study at the Yale School of Architecture, completing his studies in 1934. Saarinen began studies in sculpture at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, France, in 1929. He grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where his father taught and was dean of the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Eero Saarinen parents immigrated to the United States in 1923, when Eero was thirteen.

Eero saarinen style