The Architect and His Milieu: Personal Life

This section introduce visitors to Eero Saarinen by offering biographical information. Born in 1910 and immigrating to the United States in the mid-1920s, Eero Saarinen began his career in partnership with his remarkably gifted family: his father, Eliel, architect of Helsinki’s main train station and many other prominent residential, commercial, and government commissions; his mother Loja, sculptor, photographer, and textile designer; and his sister, Pipsan, an interior and furniture designer. Eliel’s most important American commission was the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a brilliant exemplar of his belief that architecture must address the aesthetics of whole environments, from landscapes to buildings and decorative objects.

 
The entire Saarinen family worked on the campus’s designs. This section of the exhibition  focused on this formative project and Saarinen’s relationship to his family, but also offered a fuller portrait of the person behind the famous buildings, looking at Saarinen’s relationships with fellow Cranbrook figures such as Charles Eames and Florence Knoll; his architectural education at Yale University; and his marriages to Lily Swann and Aline Louchheim. 

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