Master of Organic Functional Modernist Architecture | Eero Saarinen

Eero Saarinen was born on August 20, 1910, into an artist’s family in Kirkkonummi, Finland. His father, Eliel Saarinen, was a renowned Finnish architect, and his mother was a sculptor. From an early age, Eero Saarinen showed extraordinary talent in design; at the age of 12, he won first prize in a Swedish matchbox design competition. In the same year, his father took second place in the design contest for the Chicago Tribune Tower—a achievement that prompted him to resolve to move the entire family to the United States to further his career.

Saarinen moved to the U.S. with his father when he was 13. In 1929, he went to Paris to study sculpture, but he changed his mind a year later, returning to the U.S. to abandon sculpture and pursue architecture instead. He graduated from the Department of Architecture at Yale University in 1934, and then spent two years studying in Europe. In 1937, he completed his teaching tenure at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Detroit, Michigan, and began practicing architecture alongside his father, a collaboration that lasted until his father’s passing in 1950.

Cranbrook Academy of ArtFounded by Eliel Saarinen, father of Eero Saarinen, the academy systematically introduced European modernist design concepts and frameworks into the higher education system of the United States. It emphasized the formation of design thinking and the resolution of functional issues, with its core focus on architectural and furniture design.

In 1940, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York organized a competition titled Organic Furniture Design. Eero Saarinen collaborated on a furniture collection with Charles Eames—a fellow student at the academy who would later become a master of furniture design. Their Potato Chip Chair emerged as one of the most iconic chair designs of the 1940s. As late as 1959, the chair still ranked second in the world’s top product designs, trailing only the typewriters manufactured by Italy’s Olivetti Corporation.

In 1955, Eero Saarinen proposed applying sculptural forms to chair design, and also introduced a unique single-leg support structure. His intention was to eliminate the redundant parts of table and chair legs, which he described as an "ugly, confusing and unsettling world" in interior design.

The Tulip Chair was finalized in 1957. The design inspiration for the Tulip Collection came from a drop of highly viscous liquid. The project got off to a rocky start, as technically speaking, it was impossible to produce a single-leg chair entirely from plastic at that time. Nevertheless, Saarinen refused to give up, stating: "No one has ever made a single-leg chair, so we are going to do it."

In Eero Saarinen’s architectural career, the General Motors Technical Center was his first independently completed project—and this debut work perfectly embodied his personal style. In 1948, everything in the United States felt new, and the automobiles produced and sold by General Motors were undoubtedly iconic symbols of this transformative era.

Saarinen organically integrated sculptural forms with sleek surfaces to create a masterpiece that epitomized Mid-Century Modernism for General Motors, infusing automotive technology directly into the building’s design. Its breathtaking domes, aluminum floating staircases, and glass facades exude a sense of visual lightness and dynamism—qualities that mirrored the very essence of General Motors.

Terminal 5 of New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (now the TWA Hotel) served as the passenger terminal for Trans World Airlines (TWA). It was the first large-scale building designed with organic forms at the time and stands as a landmark structure of organic functionalism. Commissioned by TWA, Eero Saarinen began the design work in 1956; the terminal was completed in 1962 and designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 2005.

Dubbed a concrete bird with wings outstretched, poised for flight, the building embodies the symbolism of aviation. Legend has it that the design inspiration for Terminal 5 originated from a dented grape.

Eero Saarinen once stated: “I wanted the terminal to offer travelers an extraordinary journey—one that carries subtle drama, yet lingers in the memory and enchants all who pass through it.” Saarinen was an avid proponent of sketching and crafting oversized architectural models. This approach of working with large-scale models served two key purposes: first, it encouraged the entire studio team to participate in discussions, fostering a collaborative environment—he even occasionally leaned into the models to examine the building’s internal structure; second, presenting these oversized models to clients undoubtedly left a far more profound impression.

Taking the diversified exploration of the zeitgeist, modular concepts, and organicism as his point of departure, Eero Saarinen leveraged innovative material structures as his creative tools to design a series of works that expressed his unique understanding of modern architecture—works that delivered a powerful jolt to the increasingly rigid architectural landscape of his time. He was an architect who truly and seamlessly fused architectural functionality with artistic effect, leaving a profound legacy and inspiring the emergence of numerous new ideas.

Robert A.M. Stern, American architect and Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, commented: “Like Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Eero Saarinen was a pioneer who strived to create new architectural forms—one who broke free from the constraints of the modernist ‘box’.” The wheels of the times rely on pioneers to keep turning, and these masters each developed their own approaches to breaking boundaries. For Saarinen, the answer lay in two principles: sculptural form and a return to the past.