Eero Saarinen - TWA Terminal 1959 JFK airport

Born in Finland nearly 100 years ago, on Aug. 20, 1910, Eero Saarinen was raised in Hvittrask, 22 miles outside Helsinki. His father, Eliel (1873-1950), an accomplished architect, designed the Finnish pavilion at the great Paris International Exposition of 1900, the Helsinki Central Railway Station, Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo, NY, and the Cranbrook Educational Community in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. Early on, young Eero was a fixture in his dad’s studio. By the time he was 15, he was constructing presentation models for his father. Three years later, the teenager was executing sculptural details as well as furniture for the family business.

 

When he was in his 40s, Eero Saarinen, a stocky, blue-eyed, pipe-smoking, Finnish-American, designed some of the most beautiful, distinctive, and graceful buildings and structures in the United States. On the East Coast and in the heartland of the country, you’ll find the former TWA airlines terminal at JFK airport ...



Eero Saarinen in his own chair before Arne Jacobsen's chair creation ...