Today is the birthday, in 1910, of Eero Saarinen, Finnish-American architect and industrial designer who created a wide array of innovative designs for buildings and monuments, including the General Motors Technical Center; the passenger terminal at Dulles International Airport; the TWA Flight Center (now TWA Hotel) at John F. Kennedy International Airport; the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center; and the Gateway Arch. He was the son of Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen.Finnish-American architect and industrial designer.
Eero Saarinen was born in Hvitträsk, Finland (then an autonomous state in the Russian Empire) on August 20, 1910, to Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen and his second wife, Louise, on his father’s 37th birthday. They migrated to the United States in 1923, when Eero was thirteen. He grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where his father taught and was dean of the Cranbrook Academy of Art, and he took courses in sculpture and furniture design there. He had a close relationship with fellow students, designers Charles and Ray Eames, and became good friends with architect Florence Knoll (née Schust).
While still working for his father, Saarinen first gained recognition for his design capabilities for the ‘Tulip Chair’ he designed together with Charles Eames. Further 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.
After his father’s death in July 1950, Saarinen founded his own architect’s office, Eero Saarinen and Associates. He was the principal partner from 1950 until his death. The firm carried out many of its most important works, including the Bell Labs Holmdel Complex in Holmdel Township, New Jersey; the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri; the Miller House in Columbus, Indiana; the TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport, which he worked on with Charles J. Parise; the main terminal of Washington Dulles International Airport; and the new East Air Terminal of the old Athens airport in Greece, which opened in 1967. Many of these projects use catenary curves in their structural designs.
One of his best known thin-shell concrete structures is the Kresge Auditorium at MIT. Another thin-shell structure is Ingalls Rink at Yale University, which has suspension cables connected to a single concrete backbone and is nicknamed “the whale”
Saarinen died on September 1, 1961, at the age of 51 while undergoing an operation in Ann Arbor, Michigan for a brain tumor. He was overseeing the completion of a new music building for the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance.
Washington Dulles International Airport
Someone’s about to lose an eye!
Cute!
SIGNZZZZZZZZZZZ
Today is the birthday, in 1952, of American singer-songwriter-musician Doug Fieger, with The Knack. Their first single, ‘My Sharona’ was an international No.1 hit in 1979. Fieger wrote ‘My Sharona’ for Sharona Alperin, who later became his girlfriend. He died of cancer on 14th Feb 2010 aged 57. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVt2O8NnOIshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVt2O8NnOIs
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