Eero Saarinen: An Architecture of Multiplicity - Hardcover

Roman, Antonio

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1568983409 ISBN 13: 9781568983400

Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press, 2003

Synopsis

Eero Saarinen was one of the great masters of American twentieth-century architecture, and the only whose career and work has not been documented in a comprehensive monograph-until now. Saarinen's buildings are famous worldwide: the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the TWA terminal in JFK Airport, Dulles Airport, outside Washington D.C., the CBS Building in New York, the General Motors Technical Center in Michigan, the US Embassy in London, and many other landmarks. Equally celebrated are his furniture designs, including the Tulip Table and Womb Chair. While Saarinen's exuberant, even expressionistic, forms were lightning rods for many critics, his unique personal style is now much admired, making him a key figure for many designers practicing today.Saarinen's was a career of innovation. His airport terminals combined the poetry of sculpture with daring structural feats and raganizational genius; his pioneering industrial complexes for GM, IBM, and Bell Labs brought rational modernism to corporate America; and his furniture and residential buildings conveyed an optimistic, humane vision for the future. This lavishly illustrated monograph spans Saarinen's entire career, including his drawings, models, most important built works, and furniture. Eero Saarinen is a must-

About this title

About the Author

Antonio Roman is an architect, teacher, and journalist based in Bilbao, Spain.

Reviews

Underappreciated second-generation modernist architect Eero Saarinen (son of the celebrated Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen) takes his star turn in this well-illustrated, large format career retrospective, with intelligent, fluid commentary by architect-historian Román. Although never distinguishing himself with a signature style, Saarinen executed some of our most memorable mid-century commissions: Dulles Airport, the TWA Terminal at JFK and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis among them. His work, according to Román, offers an interesting case study precisely for its lack of focus. As Román's late colleague Ignasi de Solà-Morales writes in the foreword, Román seeks to "explore the architectural mechanisms by which an architect can produce a valuable body of work, despite its apparent lack of unity." Through copious photographs, diagrams and well-turned writing, Román paints Saarinen as a poster child for a pluralistic architectural practice, and extols his holistic, if sometimes mercurial, attitude regarding the built environment in general. Saarinen believed his buildings should seek to physically express their intended uses: "Conveying significant meaning is part of the inspirational purpose of architecture and, therefore, for me, it is a fundamental principle of our art," he once wrote. Among Saarinen's associates, the author suggests, including such names as Cesar Pelli, Robert Venturi, and Gunnar Birkerts, Saarinen became "something of a prophetic figure for the way his buildings evolved from an expanding, project-based vocabulary rather than from some modern functionalist ideal." Posthumously granted the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects in 1962, Saarinen was a master who well deserves a tribute such as this. 60 color and 100 b&w illustrations.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1568983409
• ISBN 13: 9781568983400
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240