Eliel Saarinen

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Eliel Saarinen at the beginning of the 20th century

Gottlieb Eliel Saarinen (born August 20, 1873 in Rantasalmi , Finland , † July 1, 1950 in Bloomfield Hills , USA) was a Finnish architect and town planner who was best known for his Art Nouveau works. He is an important representative of Finnish architecture . His son Eero Saarinen (1910–1961) also achieved great fame as an architect.

Live and act

Early work

Saarinen studied architecture and painting at the Technical University (today: Aalto University ) in Helsinki from 1893 to 1897 . During his studies he met his future partners Herman Gesellius and Armas Lindgren, with whom he opened the joint architecture firm Gesellius, Lindgren and Saarinen . Saarinen's first order in the company was the design for the Finnish pavilion for the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 . His design was a mixture of Finnish wooden architecture, a British neo-Gothic style and elements of Art Nouveau . The style had a major impact on national romanticism , which culminated in the construction of Helsinki Central Station . The building he designed in 1904 was erected between 1910 and 1914. On March 6, 1904, Saarinen married the sculptor Minna Carolina Mathilda Louise (Loja) Gesellius from Helsinki. Saarinen worked for the architecture office from 1896 to 1907. Two years before that, Lindgren left when he became director of the Technical University's architecture school.

From 1910 to 1915 Saarinen worked mainly on the extensive urban development project Munksnäs-Haga, a district of Helsinki. However, the project was not fully implemented due to the high costs. He later published his experiences from this work in a book. In January 1911 he became an urban planning consultant for the Estonian city of Reval and was also invited to advise the city of Budapest on its development. In 1912 he achieved second place in the design competition for the new Australian capital Canberra , behind Walter Burley Griffin and ahead of Alfred Agache . In April 1913 he received first prize in an international competition for his plans for Reval. In 1917 and 1918 he worked on urban planning for the greater Helsinki area. The Finnish Markka banknotes, introduced in 1922, were designed by Eliel Saarinen.

Moved to the United States

Eliel Saarinen emigrated to the United States in 1923, shortly after losing an architectural competition for the Tribune Tower in Chicago . Although he took second place, his design was realized with the construction of the Gulf Building in Houston in 1929. Saarinen initially lived in Evanston , where he helped develop the Chicago waterfront. In 1924 he worked as a visiting professor at the University of Michigan .

In 1925, George Gough Booth asked him if he would like to design the campus of the Cranbrook Educational Community in the Bauhaus style. Saarinen became a lecturer at the Cranbrook Academy of Art and was elected its head in 1932. His students included Ray Eames and Charles Eames , whose furniture design he had a major influence. The architect and town planner Edmund Bacon was also one of his students. Saarinen later became a full professor at the University of Michigan. Today a chair at the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning is named in his honor. From the mid-1930s, Eliel Saarinen also worked with his son Eero . The Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo is one of their joint works .

Eliel Saarinen and his wife Loja (1879–1968) had a daughter Eva-Lisa (Pipsan) in addition to their son Eero.

Buildings (selection)

Helsinki Central Station

Honors

Saarinen special stamp

The Finnish Post honored Saarinen Eliel Saarinen on his 100th birthday in 1973 with a special postage stamp . Saarinen received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Helsinki, the Helsinki University of Technology and the universities in Karlsruhe, Michigan, Harvard and Iowa. The Finnish Architecture Museum, which opened in 1956, based its collection in part on the estate of Eliel Saarinen's writings and notes, which his wife Loja had donated to the Finnish Architecture Association in 1952.

Publications

  • The search for form in art and architecture , Dover Publications, New York 1985, ISBN 978-0486249070 . (Reprint)

literature

  • Albert Christ-Janer: Eliel Saarinen: Finnish-American Architect and Educator , University of Chicago Press 1984, ISBN 978-0226104652 .
  • Marika Hausen, Kirmo Mikkola, Anna-Lisa Amberg, Tytti Valto: Eliel Saarinen Projects 1896–1923 , MIT Press 1990, ISBN 978-0262081948 .
  • Edward R. Ford: The Details of Modern Architecture: 1928 to 1988 , Mit Press 2004, ISBN 978-0262562027 , pp. 23-50.
  • o. A.: Eliel Saarinen and American architecture . In: Kölnische Zeitung of October 3, 1929.

Web links

Commons : Eliel Saarinen  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ nationalacademy.org: Past Academicians "S" / Saarinen, Eliel NA 1946 ( Memento of the original from March 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on July 15, 2015)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nationalacademy.org
personal data
SURNAME Saarinen, Eliel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Saarinen, Gottlieb Eliel (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Finnish architect and urban planner
DATE OF BIRTH August 20, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Rantasalmi , Finland
DATE OF DEATH July 1, 1950
Place of death Bloomfield Hills