For more than half a century people have marveled at the sweeping

forms of the Trans World Airlines terminal at Kennedy Airport

in New York, lined up to enter the catenary Saint Louis Gateway

Arch, and admired the mid-century modern lines of Knoll's

"womb" and "tulip" chairs. Yet few can name the designer of

these wide-ranging projects: Eero Saarinen (1910-1961).

One of the world's most celebrated architects at the time of his

death at the age of 51, the Finnish-born, American-trained master

of Modernism designed and built more than thirty-five buildings

in his brief lifetime, and more than thirty other projects in collaboration

with his father and such celebrated architects as Charles

Eames and Ralph Rapson. Saarinen's career began in childhood:

As the son of renowned architect Eliel Saarinen, designer of

Cranbrook Academy in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Eero grew

up in an intellectually charged environment surrounded by art

and design. Eero Saarinen trained and practiced with his father

until the early 1950s, when he established his own firm and

began to design some of the most influential institutions of his

day, among them residential colleges and a hockey rink at Yale

University, an auditorium and chapel at the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology, American embassies in London and

Oslo, and corporate headquarters for General Motors, IBM,

and Bell Laboratories.

This volume is the most definitive monograph published to date

on Eero Saarinen. It traces Saarinen's life and career from his child-hood

in Finland to collaboration with his father, through his iconic

airport projects of the 1960s, documenting more than sixty commissions

and competitions. Extensive illustrations include period

photography by Ezra Stoller, Balthazar Korab, and others; rarely

seen original sketches, concept drawings, and plans, and more

recent color photography.