Oz Volume 9 Article 17 1-1-1987 On Becoming a Modern Architect: Eero Saarinen's Early Work 1928-1948 Peter C. Papademetriou Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/oz This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Papademetriou, Peter C. (1987) "On Becoming a Modern Architect: Eero Saarinen's Early Work 1928-1948," Oz: Vol. 9. https://doi.org/10.4148/2378-5853.1146 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Oz by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact [email protected]. On Becoming a Modern Architect: Eero Saarinen's Early Work 1928-1948 Peter C. Papademetriou The debate in architectural theory and criticism of the past decade has centered around reintegration of a supposed lack of symbolic content in architectural form through, to a large part, a repudiation of its most recent legacy, the Modernist period and specifically the stylistic im­ peratives of its most obvious manifesta­ tion, the International Style. In the period of the late 1970s, while seeking to clarify a definition of this sensibility of Post-Modernism1, its theoreticians have at the same time muddied its osten­ sive catholicity or "inclusiveness" 2 by generalizing the historic moment of Modernism as having been a single Central Railway Station, Helsinki, Finland, 1909- ; Eliel Saarinen thing. The phenomenon was noted as lies an aesthetic doctrine. " 5 This bias ly replaceable as the historic styles of the architects .. If modern architecture were early as 1963 by historian William Jordy sought a new image for the new prob­ late 19th Century. Its critics have already an enshrined academy, it might that " Inevitably so, where every present lems of design, buildings appropriate to equated its failures with its image, and well be that Eero Saarinen would be con­ realizes itself by repudiating a portion new uses and generally conditioned by advocated its replacement in turn.8 sidered a mannerist and an eclectic .. of its immediate past ... although the a need for rational functionalism. The However, the recent history of Post­ it seems to be Saarinen's secret that he, swelling chorus of approval for the refur­ Modernist theoreticians, moreover, Modernism has likewise indulged in as more than most of his contemporaries, bishment of Beaux-Arts ideals threatens presented their arguments to sustain exclusionary a polemic as characterized recognized that the valid approaches to to demean still further the achievement their aesthetic bias, as for example, its predecessor, bearing witness to a modern architectural problems are vast­ of early Modernism ... ''. 3 What hap­ " [Nikolaus] Pevsner was describing revival of 18th and 19th Century ly more varied than any single-minded pened in the recent decade has been as what he thought the building should nostalgia,9 almost as if the 1932 Museum approach would indicate." 10 As Henry­ gross a reduction of the significant have been like . (attaching) the word of Modern Art exhibition "The Interna­ Russell Hitchcock noted in a 1962 development of architecture from the 'Functional' to an appearance of tional Style: Architecture Since 1922" memorial to Saarinen, ''Certainly it is mid-1930s through the mid-1960s as buildings ... (such that) the essence of was repudiated by the 1975 ' 'The Ar­ true, however, that the extreme in­ previously Sigfried Giedion had reduced rationalism is the pursuit of an abstract chitecture of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.'' sistence on a sort of modernism in ar­ all the formal diversity which did not ful­ perfectionism .. " 6 While the avowed As such, Post-Moderism as an historicist chitecture that should be in its every ly conform to the stylistic elements of goal was '' .. not to introduce a, so to aesthetic has come under attack, and, aspect as different as possible from the International Style. 4 speak, cut and dried 'Modern Style' with the decade of the late 1980s, it earlier architecture has diminished. Ar­ from Europe, but rather to introduce a would seem that the question of ar­ chitects today are less afraid of continu­ Seen in these terms, the elimination of method of approach which allows one chitectural expression still remains. ity and partial identity in theory, in tradition had been a means to introduce to tackle a problem according to its par­ materials, and in emotional content with a Neue Sachlichkeit (" new objectively") ticular condition" ,7 the net effect was to Of the leading American architects of buildings of the past than in the twen­ to address what was perceived as the codify particular stylistic standards. the 1950s, perhaps one of the most ties. But it chiefly creates confusion, I new social context of the 20th Century. enigmatic is Eero Saarinen, character­ believe, to call these tendencies 'post­ However, as Allan Colquhoun noted, Embodied in the hermetic aesthetic of ized at the height of his career as ''In modern, ' 'anti-modern' or 'neo­ "Now it's my belief that beneath the ap- the International Style, Modernism many ways the most interesting of the traditional,' however badly some generic 56 parent objectivity of these ideas there proved to be an easy target, one as readi- second generation of modern American name for them has evidently come to be Furniture designs by Eero Saarinen for "Hvittrask", Boback, Finland; photo by Eero Saarinen Kingswood School for Girls, Cranbrook , Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, 1929- needed." 11 trigues us most, then we should know severely attacked by a younger genera­ early 1923 , with the family following in something of the reasons. In fact, the tion which saw no future in nostalgia. the late spring. Saarinen holds fascination today first two decades of his personal career Eliel's solo revised design five years later because he seems to straddle between in design were a period of great change, indicated a shift toward the direction of Projects for Chicago, then Detroit and a definite commitment to the extensions which Saarinen experienced and in European Moderism, but also had a a teaching appointment at the Univer­ of the experiments of Modernism with response attempted to find his own distinct sensitivity to the existing con­ sity of Michigan eventually brought Eliel a conscious recognition of the past and definitions. The period 1928-48 may be text, the essence of which was a conser­ in contact with George G. Booth, the associative allusions of form. As the seen as his education, where he sought vative sensibility. The critical aspect of publisher of the Detroit News, and critic Peter Carter observed, "Saarinen a reconciliation of the past with his the conservatism was, as Alvar Aalto resulted in the creation of a collection was aware of today's technology in its vision of the future. noted in 1946, that "Thanks to his of educational institutions named widest sense and he used its potential honest, logical approach, the usual strife Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills, as a means of achieving a many-faceted Eero Saarinen shared his birthdate and between old and new architecture does Michigan. By 1928, Eero, who was then architectural expression within the tradi­ career with a famous father, Eliel not exist in Finland." 13 about to enter his last year of high tion of the modern masters. To advance Saarinen. The aesthetic evolution school, began to work in the Cranbrook the symbolic and environmental content represented by his period of education Eero was born at the family home Architectural Office, completing a small of that tradition he explored special ar­ was also paralleled by his coming to " Hvittrask" in 1910, and grew up in an addition and extension to " Hvittrask, " chitectural vernaculars for each project grips with his own identity in the atmosphere surrounded by the arts. which had been partially damaged by ... it precluded the possibility of a per­ shadow of his father's fame. Eliel was With Finnish independence from Russia fire. With graduation from high school sonal style, a fact which set him apart a transitional figure in Finnish architec­ in 1919 following World War I, the and the onset of the Great Depression from any of his contemporaries." 12 ture, whose own career initially found economy cratered and his father had no in 1929, Eero went to Paris to study expression in a backward look at na­ opportunities to build. In 1922, Eliel sculpture at the Academie de Ia Grande However, unlike Athena being born tional traditions mingled with a forward, achieved international fame with his Chaumiere until mid-1930, continuing directly from the head of Zeus, Eero progressive allegiance to the newest art Second Prize entry for the Chicago upon his return at Cranbrook with Saarinen did not suddenly emerge as a movements. In 1904, the winning entry Tribune Competition. On the strength sculptor Carl Milles. fully developed architect at age 40. If his for the Helsinki Central Railway Station of the prize money and possibilities for talent for formal invention is what in- by Gesell ius, Lindgren and Saarinen was work, he came to the United States in In 1929, Eliel began work on the 57 "An American Academy in Florence" ;w: ;11 ' : l t :0 ~ '' ~-· -···-· \ · ' Competition entry; Helsinki Central Post Office and Telegraph, Helsinki, Finland, 1934 :::......-~ ...... __..., •• -:.;.:. • ..,._..<- ••~-.-..:::~:.~ •• t;tt::: • ..-.,._,,.,.• •• , .....,. .... .-u.L....' 111!;,, Egypt, 1935; Eero Saarinen !left) Travel photographs, 1935 Competition entry; Helsinki Central Post Office and Telegraph, Helsinki, Finland, 1934 Kingswood School for Girls at The fall of 1931, Eero enrolled in the monumental though primitive in placed Third. Cranbrook, whose simplified massing graduate program in architecture at Yale character and as enduring as the moun­ and sparing use of ornament pulled it University, a traditional program in its tain itself.