Saarinen reappraised.

EERO SAARINEN

By Jayne Merkel. London Phaidon Press. 2005. [pounds sterling]45

A good book on the work of Eero Saarinen is overdue, and while the appetite for mid-century Modernism seems insatiable, this prolific Americanised son of a Nordic master has not, until recently, been considered a suitable case for treatment. Perhaps this was because of his enthusiasm to find a 'style for the job'; savage criticisms by Scully, Banham and others who identified him as one of 'three blind Mies' and the 'US Ballet School'; or his premature death at the age of 51 when some of his most significant buildings were still unfinished.

This book helps correct the balance by documenting an extraordinary body of work that was, and still is, inspiring in its explorations of use, form and material. It is handsomely produced and although drawings are scarce it combines iconic images of Modernism by Stoller and Korab, with informal shots from Saarinen's studio.

Eero's way of working was almost as significant as the buildings he designed. His emphasis on research, use of large-scale models and testing of prototypes derived from industrial procedures, was radical. It was a major influence on the work and one that was to influence architects as diverse as. Gehry, Piano, Koolhaas and Foster. Yet in this book that force is hard to detect.

The claim that Eero Saarinen was unduly influenced by Mies is familiar yet hardly convincing when seen against his obvious preference for the particular. This book unravels neither that claim nor his preference. For Eero 'less is more' applied more to the use of words than ideas--something that hardly helps an author. However, commenting on the GM Tech Centre, he did note that 'it has been said that in these buildings I was very much influenced by Mies ... but this architecture really carries forward the tradition of the American factory buildings which had its roots in the middle-west in the automobile factories of Albert Kahn'. His statement offers an important insight that this book--with sparse reference to Kahn or postwar industrial production in America and an image of IIT on page 70 surprisingly attributed to Saarinen--hardly engages. It usefully highlights Eero's brief cooperation with Nowicki yet reveals little from long-standing and vital collaborations with Eames, Dinkeloo and Roche.

Eero Saarinen's work is complex. With little written by the man himself and archive material scattered, this book, perhaps inevitably, tends to touch on issues lightly. However it is a welcome addition to a limited record of scholarship on this significant twentieth-century architect and one that will hopefully help to expand research currently under way in New Haven and Helsinki for the upcoming exhibition on Eero Saarinen.