Eliel Saarinen

Through his rejected 1922 design of the Chicago Tribune building he indirectly played a significant role in the influence and development of Art Deco architecture.

Eliel Saarinen studied at Helsinki University of Technology and Former Real Lyceum. Florence Knoll and Eero Saarinen are recorded as having studied under Eliel Saarinen. The recorded working language is English and Finnish. The field of work recorded is architecture. Places of work recorded in the authority are Helsinki, Vyborg and Sortavala. Employment is recorded with University of Michigan and Cranbrook Educational Community. Works named in the authority record are Helsinki Central Railway Station. Work by Eliel Saarinen is recorded in the collections of Nationalmuseum, Art Institute of Chicago, Smithsonian American Art Museum and Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design. Distinctions recorded are AIA Gold Medal, Royal Gold Medal, honorary doctorate of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and honorary doctor of Harvard University.

• Name — Eliel Saarinen • Birth Name — Gottlieb Eliel Saarinen • Born — August 20, 1873 • Birthplace — Rantasalmi, Grand Duchy of Finland • Died — 1 July 1950 • Place of death — Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, U.S. • Significant Buildings — * Helsinki Central railway station • National Museum of Finland • Vyborg railway station • Hvitträsk • Kleinhans Music Hall • Significant Projects — * Finnish pavilion at the 1900 Exposition Universelle • Cranbrook Academy of Art • Significant Design — * Eliel Saarinen's Tribune Tower design (1922) • Finnish markka banknotes (1922) • Spouse — Loja Saarinen • Children — * Eero Saarinen • Pipsan Saarinen Swanson • Relatives — Herman Gesellius (brother-in-law) • Awards — AIA Gold Medal

• Illustration — Armas Lindgren, Eliel Saarinen, Albertina Östman, and Herman Gesellius in the late 1890s Saarinen was born in Rantasalmi on 20 August 1873 to Lutheran clergyman Juho Saarinen and his wife, Selma, Broms. Saarinen was educated in Helsinki at the Helsinki University of Technology. From 1896 to 1905 he worked as a partner with Herman Gesellius and Armas Lindgren at the firm Gesellius, Lindgren, Saarinen. His first major work with the firm, the Finnish pavilion at the Paris 1900 World Fair, exhibited an extraordinary convergence of stylistic influences: Finnish wooden architecture, the British Gothic Revival, and the Jugendstil. Saarinen's early manner was later christened the Finnish National Romanticism and culminated in the Helsinki Central railway station (designed 1904, constructed 1910–14). From 1910 to 1915 he worked on the extensive city-planning project of Munksnäs-Haga and later published a book on the subject. In January 1911 he became a consultant in city planning for Tallinn, Governorate of Estonia and was invited to Budapest to advise in city development. In 1912, a brochure written by Saarinen about the planning problems of Budapest was published. He was runner up behind Walter Burley Griffin in an international competition to design the new Australian capital city of Canberra in 1912, but the following year he received the first place award in an international competition for his plan of the city of Reval, now known as Tallinn. From 1917 to 1918 Saarinen worked on the city-plan for greater Helsinki. He also designed a series of postage stamps issued 1917 and the Finnish markka banknotes introduced in 1922. After the divorce from his first wife, Mathilde (who then married Herman Gesellius), on March 6, 1904, Saarinen married his second wife, Louise (Loja) Gesellius, a sculptor in Helsinki, and the younger sister of Herman Gesellius. They had a daughter Eva-Lisa (Pipsan) on March 31, 1905, and a son Eero on August 20, 1910.

Eliel Saarinen moved to the United States in 1923 after his competition entry for the Tribune Tower in Chicago, Illinois, won second place. While it was not built, the streamlined design inspired the architecture of many other skyscrapers. Saarinen first settled in Evanston, Illinois, where he worked on his scheme for the development of the Chicago lake front. In 1924 he became a visiting professor at the University of Michigan. In 1925 George Gough Booth asked him to design the campus of Cranbrook Educational Community, intended to be an American equivalent to the Bauhaus. Saarinen taught there and became president of the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1932. Among his student-collaborators were Ray Eames (then Ray Kaiser) and Charles Eames; Saarinen influenced their subsequent furniture design. During 1929–34, Saarinen contributed product designs for the Wilcox Silver Plate Co. / International Silver Company in Meriden, Connecticut. His iconic tea urn (c. 1934) was first exhibited in 1934–35 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Over the years, the tea urn has been widely exhibited, including in St. Louis Modern (2015–16) at the St Louis Art Museum, Cranbrook Goes to the Movies: Films and Their Objects, 1925–1975 at the Cranbrook Art Museum (2014–15), and in 2005–07, in the touring exhibition Modernism in American Silver: 20th-Century Design, organized by the Dallas Museum of Art, which also traveled to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. In 1951–52, the tea urn was featured in the Eliel Saarinen Memorial Exhibition which traveled to multiple venues across the United States. In addition to Cranbrook, the Dallas Museum and the St Louis Museum, The British Museum in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art also hold tea urn-related Eliel Saarinen designs. His son, Eero Saarinen (1910–1961), became one of the most important American architects of the mid-20th century as one of the leaders of the International and Neo-futurist styles. Saarinen's student Edmund N. Bacon achieved national prominence as Executive Director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission from 1949 to 1970. Eliel Saarinen received the AIA Gold Medal in 1947.

Buildings designed by Eliel Saarinen • Illustration — Saarinen designed entire city districts of Helsinki, but they were never built due to cost. This picture shows his plan for the Haaga district. • Illustration — Illustration of the Kalevala House, an unbuilt building designed by Saarinen. • Work — Location — Finished — Picture • Finnish Pavilion at the Exposition Universelle (designed with Herman Gesellius and Armas Lindgren) — Paris — 1900 — • Hvitträsk — Kirkkonummi — 1902 — • National Museum of Finland — Helsinki — 1904 — • Luther Factory Workers' Canteen and People's House (designed with Herman Gesellius and Armas Lindgren) — Tallinn — 1905 — • Helsinki Central railway station — Helsinki — 1909 — • Lahti Town Hall — Lahti — 1911 — • Former Credit Bank Headquarters ("Saarinen House") — Tallinn — 1912 — • Villa Winter — Sortavala — 1912 — • Vyborg railway station — Vyborg — 1913 — • Joensuu Town Hall — Joensuu — 1914 — • Saint Paul's Church — Tartu — 1917 — • Marble Palace — Helsinki — 1918 — • Munkkiniemi Pension house — Helsinki — 1920 — • Cranbrook Educational Community — Bloomfield Hills — 1924–1942 — • Koussevitzky Music Shed — Lenox — 1938 — • Kleinhans Music Hall — Buffalo — 1940 — • Crow Island School — Winnetka — 1940–41 — • First Christian Church — Columbus, IN — 1942 — • Des Moines Art Center — Des Moines — 1948 — • Christ Church Lutheran — Minneapolis — 1949 —

His recorded languages were English and Finnish. His recorded confession was Lutheranism. He was the child of Juho Saarinen. He married Loja Saarinen and Mathilda Tony Charlotta Gyldén. 2 children are recorded: Eero Saarinen and Pipsan Saarinen Swanson.

Eliel Saarinen worked in architecture. His work is associated with Art Nouveau, Art Deco and International Style. He was employed by University of Michigan and Cranbrook Educational Community. He worked at Helsinki, Vyborg, Sortavala and Tallinn.

Eliel Saarinen is recorded as having received AIA Gold Medal, Royal Gold Medal and honorary doctorate of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.