Eero Saarinen

Eero Saarinen was born in 1910 in Finland and his path was predetermined in childhood. As the son of artists, he was surrounded by design all his life - his father Eliel Saarinen was an architect and director of the Cranbrook Academy of Art and his mother Loja Saarinen was a textile artist. In 1929, Saarinen went to Paris to study sculpture and the following year enrolled at Yale to study architecture. In 1934 he returned to Michigan to teach at Cranbrook and work with his father on furniture and architecture projects. It was there that Saarinen met Charles Eames and later Florence Knoll, who would greatly influence his subsequent career.

Known for his obsession with revisions,Saarinen took a sculptural approach to furniture design and built hundreds of full-scale models. His designs, which used modern materials in graceful organic forms, helped build the reputation of many companies and define their identity. Among them is Funzionalismo, for which he created the EERO SAARINEN collection, named after himself. In addition to his furniture achievements, Saarinen was one of the leading figures of the second generation of modernists. His most notable projects include Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, the TWA terminal at Kennedy International Airport, and the CBS headquarters in New York City.