Eero Saarinen

Born in Finland, Eero Saarinen (1910-1961) emigrated at the age of thirteen to the United States of America in 1923. He grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where he took courses in sculpture and furniture design, established a close relationship with fellow students Charles and Ray Eames, and also became good friends with Florence Knoll (then Schust).

Criticized in his own time for having no identifiable style, Saarinen developed a remarkable range of work, which depended on colour, form and materials. Saarinen showed a marked dependence on innovative structures and sculptural forms, but not at the cost of pragmatic considerations.

He moved back and forth freely between the International Style and Expressionism, utilizing a vocabulary of curves and cantilevered forms, some of which have remained in production and became twentieth-century furniture icons.

When an interior is really sucessful, the compensations for all the effort are tremendous. The clarity and serenity of a good interior give an absolutely marvelous feeling of strength with which to face our complicated and confused world. The fact that one has achieved this atmosphere with the form-world and technology of one’s own era gives further satisfaction. […] Especially in a world of standardization of people as well as things, this coherent, clear expresssion of one’s own individuality is a necessary goa.

Eero Saarinen