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Arts & Ente
a nment
Courtesy Eero Saarinen Collection; Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University.
Photo by Balthazar Korab; © Balthazar Korab Ltd.
Photo by Balthazar Korab; © Balthazar Korab Ltd.
IBM Manufacturing and Training Facility, Rochester, Minn., circa
TWA Terminal, New York International Sketch of David S. Ingalls Hockey Rink, Yale University, New
Haven, Conn., circa 1953
(now John F. Kennedy International)
1958
Airport
m the Co llec tio ns of Ar teag a Pho tos L td.
Modernist from page C3
— --
United States Jefferson National
Expansion Memorial, St. Louis, Mo.,
under construction, 1965
"When I was in the Army following gradu-
ate school — without any financial resources
to speak of — I could afford to put together
only one portfolio of my work as a student
and as a summer employee,' Roth recalls.
"I sent it to Eero and got a rather quick
response. He just replied,`Come.' I never
had an interview, seen the office or been in
Michigan, but I decided it was a wonderful
challenge. I just decided to go in 1959, and it
was a wonderful experience."
Part of that experience was meeting
Saarinen's second wife, Aline Bernstein
Louchheim Saarinen, a writer (and future
television correspondent) with Jewish
heritage. The couple met when she was
assigned to interview the famed architect
in Bloomfield Hills in January 1953 for the
New York Times. Their mutual attraction was
immediate, and Saarinen divorced his first
Reed Kroloff
New man on
campus follows
in the Saarinens'
footsteps.
Suzanne Chessler
Special to the Jewish News
R
eed Kroloff, who lived in
an Eero Saarinen-designed
building while attending Yale
University, now finds himself surround-
ed by Saarinen designs and history as
he takes on his new responsibilities as
campus architect and director of the
Cranbrook Academy of Art and Art
Museum.
That's perfectly fine with him.
"Cranbrook is a fabled place in the
world of design and art, and it's a little
humbling to think that I could occupy
the same position that was held by
Eliel Saarinen, Eero's father," says
Kroloff, 46, whose appointment was
made after a seven-month national
search to find a successor for the
retiring Gerhardt Knodel.
"The strength and reputation of
Cranbrook and the opportunity to help
steward an institution that is such a
cultural treasure was simply an over-
whelming factor in the decision to
come here."
Kroloff's main goals – moving the
school and museum confidently into
the 21st century, keeping at the tech-
nological forefront, cementing the
leadership of the Cranbrook programs
– follow some daunting experiences
he had in his previous position as dean
of the Tulane University School of
Architecture.
Kroloff arrived shortly before
Hurricane Katrina devastated the
city of New Orleans and had to help
with arrangements so students could
continue their education during the
semester that Tulane would be closed.
As dean, he helped retain 100 per-
cent of the school's faculty and 97
percent of the school's students. He
wife, sculptor Lily Swann Saarinen, later that
year. (Aline had been divorced from her first
husband since 1951.)
"Aline Saarinen was an art critic and
historian who had been living in New York','
Kroloff says. "She was largely responsible for
transforming her husband from an architect
of regional renown to one of worldwide
attention."
Mark Coir, director of Cranbrook Archives
and Cultural Properties and a contributor
to the book that accompanies the exhibit
(Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future, edited by
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen and Donald Albrecht;
Yale University Press; $60), says that the
Saarinens had a strong marriage that lasted
seven years, until his death at age 51 in 1961
of a brain tumor.
"Aline Saarinen was extremely well-con-
nected, and she basically controlled the
media exposure of his work',' Coir says. "She
created an image that helped promote him in
the arts community.'
Both Saarinens came to their 1954 mar-
riage with two children. Their son, Eames,
born in 1955 and named after their friend
Charles Eames, has suffered with lifelong
disabilities.
After her husband's death, Mine Saarinen
edited the book Eero Saarinen on His Work:
A Selection of Buildings Dating from 1947
to 1964. She became a television journalist,
eventually rising to the post of chief of NBC
News' Paris Bureau, and died at age 58 in
1972, also of a brain tumor.
Eero Saarinen's now-classic "Womb"
and "Tulip" chairs are sold periodically at
Antiques on Main in Royal Oak. Owner
Modernist on page C8
Photo by Emin Kadi
State, was familiar with the
raised $3 million in gifts
territory. Born in Phoenix,
and research grants
he became interested in
and joined in citywide
building design as a child
planning and rebuilding
while seeing the houses
efforts after the massive
shown by his mother, a real
flooding.
estate agent. After study-
"It was a nightmare
ing art history at Yale, he
to be dean for just a few
decided to pursue architec-
months and have the
ture as a graduate student
hurricane happen on the
at the University of Texas
first day of school," he
in Austin.
recalls. "We were cut off
A short stint with his
from all our students and Reed Kroloff sits on an
own practice in Austin was
had no idea where they
Eero Saarinen "Tulip"
followed by the teaching
were or if they were safe. chair on the lawn in
position at Arizona State,
"My associate dean
front of Cranbrook
promotion to assistant
and I were able to find
Art Museum, designed
dean and additional work
every single one of our
by Eero's father Eliel
as architecture writer for
325 students on the
Saarinen.
the Arizona Republic.
Internet. We worked out
"That writing attracted
of a hotel in Houston, the
the attention of what was then the
place to which we had been evacuated.
nation's largest architecture publica-
"The university president negoti-
tion, Architecture, which was based
ated arrangements with every other
in Washington, D.C., and I was offered
university in the United States to take
the position of associate editor in
our students for the semester, and we
1995," Kroloff says. "Within two years,
made arrangements for our fifth-year
I became the editor in chief and stayed
students to be together at Arizona
with it until 2002, when it was sold."
State University, where three of our
faculty members went to teach them."
Reed Kroloff on page C8
Kroloff, who had taught at Arizona
November 15 2007
C7