The architecture
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Pho to by Ezra Sto ller

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General Motor

Suzanne Chessler
Special to the Jewish News

A

n architect who planned for the
future — Eero Saarinen, the late
Bloomfield Hills-based designer
of international note and subject of the
touring exhibit "Eero Saarinen: Shaping
the Future" — and an architect looking
to the future — Reed Kroloff, the recently
appointed campus architect and direc-
tor of the Cranbrook Academy of Art and
Art Museum — are drawing attention to
the campus of the Cranbrook Educational
Community
"I'm anticipating the Eero Saarinen
exhibit, [which can be seen Nov. 17-March
30 at the Cranbrook Art Museum], with
great enthusiasm because he always has
been one of my absolute favorite architects:'
says Kroloff, former dean of the Tulane
University School of Architecture and
former editor in chief of Architecture maga-
zine."He's responsible for two of what I
consider the very best architectural projects
ever built in the United States, [the Gateway
Arch in St. Louis and the John Foster Dulles
Airport outside Washington, D.C.], and
there aren't very many people who can
claim [even] one."
The exhibit — organized by the Finnish
Cultural Institute in New York, the Museum

of Finnish Architecture in Helsinki and the
National Building Museum in Washington,
D.C. — makes its North American debut at
Cranbrook. It features photographs, draw-
ings and models to represent Saarinen's
structural triumphs and also presents
selections from furniture he created.
Among Saarinen's large legacy of build-
ings are the General Motors Technical
Center in Warren, the corporate headquar-
ters of John Deere in Illinois and diplomatic
embassies in Oslo and London. As ideas for
Brandeis University were being developed,
Saarinen helped with the original master
plan.
An International Saarinen Symposium,
exploring the late architect's life and work,
will convene Saturday, Nov. 17, at Cranbrook
and the General Motors Technical Center.
"Saarinen was somewhat underap-
preciated in his time,' says Kroloff, a
Yale University alum like Saarinen. The
architect's exuberant, even expressionistic
forms were lightning rods for many critics
of the mid-20th century, though his unique
personal style is now much admired and
emulated. "But I always thought he was fan-
tastic," says Kroloff.
Saarinen arrived at Cranbrook in 1925
at age 15, with his parents, Finnish-born
architect and educator Eliel Saarinen, who
designed the educational community, and

Ma nu sc rip ts a n d

Warren, Michigan,1948

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Eero Saarinen with a combined

living-dining-room-study project

model, created for Architectural
Forum magazine, circa 1937

sculptor and weaver Loja Saarinen.
Eero soon started creating decorative
pieces for many of the campus buildings,
including furniture for Saarinen House, the
family home, as well as chairs, tables, sofas,
beds and lamps for Cranbrook's Kingswood
School for Girls.
While at Cranbrook, the young Saarinen
came to know and work with Florence
Knoll Bassett, Charles and Ray Eames,
Harry Bertoia and Ralph Rapson. He
went on to study at the Yale School of

Architecture and returned to Cranbrook in
1936, after a two-year fellowship in Europe.
Although launching his career by work-
ing for his father's firm in 1936, he ventured
out with his own projects.
Jewish architect Harold Roth, whose New
Haven, Conn.-based firm Roth and Moore
Architects built the Joseph Slifka Center
for Jewish Life at Yale, began his career as a
Saarinen staff member.
"There's no question that Eero had a
tremendous influence on my professional
life even though my time with his firm
was very short:' says Roth, whose major
Saarinen assignment was working on the
CBS Headquarters Building in New York
City. "One of his important lessons was to
keep exploring until a project feels right
instinctively.
"Eero had enormous energy and out-
paced architects many years younger. He
frequently would come in after some social
event and write notes on drawings in the
middle of the night:"
Roth, currently working on the Hillel
Center at Emory University in Atlanta,
recalls Saarinen's design of the nonde-
nominational Firestone Baars Chapel at
Missouri's Stephens College as a significant
project with a religious focus.

Modernist on page C7

November 15 2007

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