Synopsis
From the swooping concrete vaults of the TWA Terminal at JFK Airport to the 630-foot-tall Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the iconic designs of Eero Saarinen (1910–1961) captured the aspirations and values of mid-20th-century America. Potent expressions of national power, these and other Saarinen-designed structures—including the GM Technical Center, Dulles International Airport, and John Deere headquarters—helped create the international image of the United States in the decades following World War II.
Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future offers a new and wide-ranging look at the entire scope of Saarinen’s career. This is the first book on Saarinen to incorporate significant research and materials from the newly available archives of his office, and includes the most complete portfolio of Saarinen's projects to date—a chronological survey of more than 100 built and unbuilt works, previously unpublished photographs, plans, and working drawings.
Lavishly illustrated, this major study shows how Saarinen gave his structures an expressive dimension and helped introduce modern architecture to the mainstream of American practice. In his search for a richer and more varied modern architecture, Saarinen became one of the most prolific and controversial practitioners of his time.
John Hagood Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information - Library Journal
The Finnish-born Saarinen (1910 61) now sometimes labeled "proto-postmodern" or "of the second generation of high modernists" and known for the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the terminal buildings at JFK (NY) and Dulles (VA) airports appears on any list of great American 20th-century architects. This is the fourth general book on Saarinen in as many years, and it easily takes the palm. Published for an exhibition traveling through 2010, it contains chronologies, a bibliography, a biography, and a portfolio of more than 100 projects, rendering it the definitive compendium on the architect. It should certainly fulfill editors Pelkonen (architecture, Yale Univ.; Achtung Architecture!) and Albrecht's (curator, architecture & design, Museum of the City of New York; The Work of Charles and Ray Eames) hope to "inspire further research." Best, six interpretive essays are delightfully personal yet not reflexively hagiographic the authors are critical and conscious of history writing. While the book is generous to earlier writers, its richness and clarity make it superior to Jayne Merkel's Eero Saarinenand Antonio Román's Eero Saarinen: An Architecture of Multiplicity. The exemplary range of perspective, organization, and consequent accessibility for readers should earn it a place in all libraries.