Eero Saarinen

Eero Saarinen

From The New YorkerIn 1956, when Saarinen made the cover of Time, he was America's most renowned architect. His sculptural modernism-evident in such commissions as the T.W.A. terminal at Kennedy Airport, the CBS building, and the St. Louis Arch-was in perfect accord with the country's postwar mood. He trained at the school founded by his father, the celebrated Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen, and established important relationships there with his future collaborators Charles and Ray Eames. An indefatigable worker, he oversaw more than forty staff architects at the height of his practice, and created in detail hundreds of possible designs for each project. After his death, in 1961, his work fell into critical neglect. Merkel's handsome volume presents the first truly comprehensive survey, and seeks to demonstrate how Saarinen could be "mainstream and avant-garde at the same time."Copyright