“Eero Saarinen – Shaping the Future” in New York City

The latest edition of the touring Eero Saarinen exhibition is on view at the Museum of the City of New York, presenting Eero Saarinen’s roots and work in Helsinki as well as his links to New York.

“Eero Saarinen – Shaping the Future” debuted in Helsinki in 2006. The exhibition is the first-ever retrospective of Saarinen’s work.

Eero Saarinen (1910-1961), the son of internationally famous architect Eliel Saarinen, is widely acknowledged as a leader of the second generation of modernist architects who rose to prominence after World War II. While helping to advance his predecessors’ focus on deriving architectural form from new construction technologies, Saarinen sought to expand modernism’s vocabulary. He frequently moved away from simple, abstract compositions in favour of exuberant visual effects and historical references.

Saarinen’s works included such 20th-century icons as New York’s Trans World Airlines Terminal and St. Louis’s Gateway Arch. Though many critics accused Saarinen of inventing a new style for every job, his diverse and sometimes unabashedly theatrical designs captured the aspirations and values of postwar America.

Eero Saarinen and Helsinki

Although Eero Saarinen made his career in the United States and his work is part of the American architectural history, some of the first phases of his career as an architect took place in Helsinki. He later continued to maintain ties to his country of birth.

Eero Saarinen was born to Loja and Eliel Saarinen in Kirkkonummi in the Helsinki region in 1910. The family lived at their villa in Hvitträsk until 1923, when they moved to the United States. Eero was 12 years old at the time. He studied architecture in the United States and graduated from Yale University in 1934, after which we toured Europe for two years. He spent most of this time in Helsinki, where he worked with architect Jarl Eklund. Eklund had been an assistant to Eliel Saarinen in Hvitträsk.

With Eklund, Saarinen actively participated in the alteration and expansion of the Swedish Theatre (Svenska teatern) in Helsinki (1935-36), preparing various sketches and studies for the building. He designed furniture for the theatre hall and adjacent restaurant.

Saarinen also made sketches and studies for a commercial building intended for the site which is today occupied by Forum in Helsinki. He named the project “City Palace” (1936). Both the Swedish Theatre and City Palace projects were related to plans made earlier by Eliel Saarinen.

“Eero Saarinen – Shaping the Future” will be on view at the Museum of the City of New York through January, 31, 2010. The exhibition is organized by the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, The Museum of Finnish Architecture, Helsinki, and the National Building Museum, Washington, D.C., with the support of the Yale University School of Architecture.