EERO SAARINEN

August 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

 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

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 mans 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

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

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 nonpublic 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

The building designed to be the embodiment of flight.

Saarinen developed the form with reinforced concrete. It
expressive forms allow the building to stand out against
its
contemporaries. The fluid nature of concrete was pushed
to
the extreme in creating the bird-like forms. The concrete
also made a solid choice since the building would be
subject
to millions of travelers a year. The materials had to be
durable.

Model of TWA by
Eero Saarinen

THANK YOU