Out of the shadows.EERO SAARINEN Noun 1. Eero Saarinen - United States architect (born in Finland) (1910-1961) Saarinen : SHAPING THE FUTURE Edited by Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen and Donald Albrecht. New Haven New Haven, city (1990 pop. 130,474), New Haven co., S Conn., a port of entry where the Quinnipiac and other small rivers enter Long Island Sound; inc. 1784. Firearms and ammunition, clocks and watches, tools, rubber and paper products, and textiles are among the many : Yale University Yale University, at New Haven, Conn.; coeducational. Chartered as a collegiate school for men in 1701 largely as a result of the efforts of James Pierpont, it opened at Killingworth (now Clinton) in 1702, moved (1707) to Saybrook (now Old Saybrook), and in 1716 was Press. 2006. $65 Eero Saarinen (1910-61) was arguably the greatest and most underrated postwar American architect after Louis Kahn Louis Isadore Kahn (born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky) (February 20, 1901 or 1902 – March 17, 1974) was a world-renowned architect based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own firm in 1935. : an inspired form-giver who died at the height of his powers, and was denied the respect he deserved. Along with this superb companion book, a major exhibition launched last autumn in Helsinki (which will travel for four years) seeks to explain the neglect and make amends. In his lifetime, Saarinen provoked orthodox Modernists by adopting a different style for every job, and expressing the excitement of jet travel in the daring curves of the TWA TWA Time-weighted average, see there terminal at Kennedy. This endangered icon is now as obsolete as the Lockheed Constellation The Lockheed Constellation, affectionately known as the “Connie”, was a four-engine propeller-driven airliner built by Lockheed between 1943 and 1958 at its Burbank, California, USA, facility. , and just as significant a period piece. In contrast, the Jefferson Memorial Arch in St Louis has the timeless grandeur of great bridges, and the tulip tulip [Pers.,=turban], any plant of the large genus Tulipa, hardy, bulbous-rooted members of the family Liliaceae (lily family), indigenous to north temperate regions of the Old World from the Mediterranean to Japan and growing most abundantly on the steppes furniture has also become an enduring classic. Dulles is somewhere in between: still inspiring, but straining to accommodate the huge increase In traffic. Other Saarinen buildings--notably the US Embassy in London--are painfully awkward and seem to have come from a different office. Several critics address this erratic practice, so reflective of its time yet out of sync with the architect's contemporaries. Vincent Scully, who dismissed Saarinen out of hand, offers a sober reassessment; other essays explore the legacy of Cranbrook and the son emerging from the long shadow of his father to forge his own bold identity. Period photographs and sketches illustrate the creative process, notably on the Arch, the GM Technical Center and the Yale hockey rink. Former proteges Robert Venturi, Cesar Pelli and Kevin Roche offer tributes and there's a comprehensive survey of major and lesser works. As Scully observes, Saarinen has the potential to inspire architects of the computer generation, and this illuminating study is sure to enlarge his reputation. |
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion