Eero Saarinen: An Architecture of Multiplicity [Hardcover]

Antonio Roman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2003

Eero Saarinen was one of the great masters of American twentieth-century architecture, and the only whose career and work has not been documented in a comprehensive monograph-until now. Saarinen's buildings are famous worldwide: the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the TWA terminal in JFK Airport, Dulles Airport, outside Washington D.C., the CBS Building in New York, the General Motors Technical Center in Michigan, the US Embassy in London, and many other landmarks. Equally celebrated are his furniture designs, including the Tulip Table and Womb Chair. While Saarinen's exuberant, even expressionistic, forms were lightning rods for many critics, his unique personal style is now much admired, making him a key figure for many designers practicing today.Saarinen's was a career of innovation. His airport terminals combined the poetry of sculpture with daring structural feats and raganizational genius; his pioneering industrial complexes for GM, IBM, and Bell Labs brought rational modernism to corporate America; and his furniture and residential buildings conveyed an optimistic, humane vision for the future. This lavishly illustrated monograph spans Saarinen's entire career, including his drawings, models, most important built works, and furniture. Eero Saarinen is a must-

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Underappreciated second-generation modernist architect Eero Saarinen (son of the celebrated Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen) takes his star turn in this well-illustrated, large format career retrospective, with intelligent, fluid commentary by architect-historian Román. Although never distinguishing himself with a signature style, Saarinen executed some of our most memorable mid-century commissions: Dulles Airport, the TWA Terminal at JFK and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis among them. His work, according to Román, offers an interesting case study precisely for its lack of focus. As Román's late colleague Ignasi de Solà-Morales writes in the foreword, Román seeks to "explore the architectural mechanisms by which an architect can produce a valuable body of work, despite its apparent lack of unity." Through copious photographs, diagrams and well-turned writing, Román paints Saarinen as a poster child for a pluralistic architectural practice, and extols his holistic, if sometimes mercurial, attitude regarding the built environment in general. Saarinen believed his buildings should seek to physically express their intended uses: "Conveying significant meaning is part of the inspirational purpose of architecture and, therefore, for me, it is a fundamental principle of our art," he once wrote. Among Saarinen's associates, the author suggests, including such names as Cesar Pelli, Robert Venturi, and Gunnar Birkerts, Saarinen became "something of a prophetic figure for the way his buildings evolved from an expanding, project-based vocabulary rather than from some modern functionalist ideal." Posthumously granted the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects in 1962, Saarinen was a master who well deserves a tribute such as this. 60 color and 100 b&w illustrations.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"This is the most complete title available on this architect..." -- Library Journal, February 1, 2003

Antonio Roman spans the architect's diverse career...Saarinen's multiplicity is both inspiring and humbling. -- Interior Design Magazine - Debra Lehman-Smith

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press; 1 edition (March 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568983409
• ISBN-13: 978-1568983400
• Product Dimensions: 12.4 x 9.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,170,346 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eero Saarinen: An Architecture of Multiplicity, September 23, 2003

By 

Michael Webb (London, England > Los Angeles, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eero Saarinen: An Architecture of Multiplicity (Hardcover)

A handsome, long-overdue monograph on an architect who, between 1948 and his untimely death in 1961, created some of America's greatest icons-including Dulles Airport in Virginia, the Gateway Arch in St Louis, and the CBS tower in New York-as well as the classic Womb and Tulip chairs. Saarinen defied categorization, employing a different style for every job, and that damned him in the eyes of many critics. Some of his buildings soar-the TWA Terminal at Kennedy, now imperiled, was once a thrilling expression of the jet age-others, like Stiles and Morse College at Yale, and the US Embassy in London fall with a thud. Roman, a Bilbao-based architect, traces the evolution of key buildings with an abundance of plans and images.

3.0 out of 5 stars Not a typical monograph and only in B&W, but close, September 29, 2011

By 

Eugene Tenenbaum "reluctant reader" (Bronx, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Eero Saarinen: An Architecture of Multiplicity (Hardcover)

This is not a typical, chronological monograph, as the projects are arbitrarily and a bit chaotically scattered, but the book resembles one. It is basically only in black and white. Only chapter title pages are in color. Not all projects are depicted well with plans, elevations, and sections, but somehow all are and approx. 70 photos are large and excellent. Other photos are very small. The TWA Terminal, furniture, Yale colleges, Dulles Int'l Airport, St. Louis Arch, are shown extensively, while other projects - poorly more or less.