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Eero Saarinen's History
Father - Eliel, architect
Mother - Loja, sculptor, weaver, photographer, and architectural model maker.
Married twice - Lily Swann (1939-1953), Aline B. Louchheim 1953
3 children - 2 with Lily (Eric, Susan) and 1 with Aline (Eames)
Born in Finland on August 20,1910
At age 12 took first place in a matchstick design contest
Meanwhile, his father won second place ($20,000) in an international
competition for the Chicago Tribune Tower. This led to the family moving
to US in 1923 (Michigan)
As Eero grew up, he began designing furniture, including the furniture for one of his father's projects
Studied sculpture in Paris for about 1 year
Graduated from Yale University,1934
2 year fellowship in Europe
Partner w/his father until his father died (1950)
Design for the Gateway Arch in St. Louis helped establish an identity separate
from his father's
Died September 1, 1961 following brain surgery
An interesting quote by Charles Eames reveals how hard Eero worked and how much work he expected of those around him. The firm was entering a competition for the Smithsonian art gallery in 1939. Eames later said that Eero
"thought out the whole thing carefully and then he told us the first thing to do would be to make 100 studies of each element that went into the building. We would then pick the best, and never let our standards below that. Then we would make 100 studies of the combinations of each element... Then 100 studies of the combinations of combinations. When the whole thing was finished, Eero was almost in tears, because it was so simple. And then, of course, they won the competition (Temko, 17)."
Saarinen attempted to use the technological advances of his time, and the new materials that were available to, create "prouder, more aggressive, richer and larger (Saarinen, 5)" architecture.
Other Major Projects
Jefferson National Expansion Memorial - 1964
General Motors Technical Center - 1956
MIT Chapel & Auditorium - 1956
TWA Flight Center - 1962
Dulles Airport Background and Information
Location
10,000 acres in Loudoun and Fairfax Counties in Chantilly, Virginia; 4,880 acres used for aircraft operations. Dulles is approximately 26 miles and 30 minutes from downtown Washington, D.C. The site is a large flat plain. Access from Washington, D.C. is via a toll road.
Avg. High Temperature - 65.1
Avg. Low Temperature - 42.5
Latitude - 38.9N
Client
U.S. Government - Contracted the architects and engineers Eero Saarinen & Associates, Amman & Whitney, Burns & McDonald, and Ellery Husted, with planning consultant Brunham Kelly to develop the master plan, approach roads to the airport, the individual buildings, and the light standards for the Dulles International Airport. It was the first civil airport designed for jet aircraft. Houston Intercontinental Airport was the second.
Cost
Approximately $108.3 million
Size
Original terminal 600 feet long and 150 feet wide.
Expanded terminal 1200 feet long and 150 feet wide.
Control tower - 193 feet tall.
Construction
Cast-in-place concrete battered walls and structural frame with a glass, steel, and aluminum window wall. The roof is concrete encased suspended steel cables with insulated precast concrete panels and a single ply membrane roofing system
Opened
November 1962
The Mobile Lounge
Passengers are ferried around Dulles on "mobile lounges," a cross between buses and waiting rooms. They originally served cocktails on the way out to the airplane.
Awards
American Institute of Architects 25 Year Award, 1988
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