SAARINEN, EERO 1910-1961

DESIGNER OF THE "WOMB" CHAIR AND PROLIFIC ARCHITECT

Early Life

Son of well-known Finnish architect and educator Eliel Saarinen, Eero Saarinen moved to the United States with his family in 1923. It was at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, headed by the elder Saarinen, that Eero blossomed.

Organic Design

After winning first prize with Charles Eames in the 1940-1941 Museum of Modern Art's Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition, Saarinen began working on an "organic" chair design. He believed that a chair was incomplete without a person sitting in it, and he was determined to design a truly organic chair in which all parts blended in a unity of design. The result was the Womb chair, so called because its comfortable construction encouraged the sitter to assume a fetal position. The construction was of a molded plastic shell and fabric-covered latex foam upholstery on a steel frame with nylon swivel guides. There was also an accompanying ottoman. The chair is considered by many to be one of the most comfortable contemporary chairs ever made, and it was wildly popular in the 1950s. It still sells well.

Pedestal Group

In the 1950s Saarinen became dedicated to designing a chair in which body and base were a unified structure. This design led to his successful Pedestal group in 1957 consisting of an armchair, two stools, a side chair, and several tables.

Architect, Too

As an architect Saarinen had many outstanding achievements, including the winning design for the Smithsonian Art Gallery in Washington, D.C. His designs also included the master plan for the University of Michigan's Ann Arbor campus; the TWA Terminal at Kennedy Airport in New York; the Ingalls Ice Hockey Rink at Yale University; the Columbia Broadcasting System headquarters building in New York; Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C; the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan; the United States Embassy in London; and the chapel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He always described his work as rooted in the "organic approach," that is, one that "grows together with and out of the total concept of a building."

Untimely Death

Saarinen died at the age of fifty-one after surgery for a brain tumor. But he made an unforgettable mark in the fields of architecture and interior design.