Recalling Saarinen's Mastery

Saarinen’s TWA Terminal (Image by Ezra Stoller)The A+D Museum is flourishing as a hub of activity, raising public awareness of architecture and design. Its current exhibition, Eero Saarinen: a Reputation for Innovation, is on display through January 3rd, and it provides a good introduction to the varied work of this American master. Here are the classic achievements—the St Louis Arch, the TWA Terminal at JFK and Dulles Airport in Virginia—all completed after his premature death in 1961 at age 51. How many more masterpieces might there have been if he had lived as long as his father, the Finnish master Eliel Saarinen? Here, too, are examples of the furniture Eero created for Knoll: the Grasshopper and Womb chairs, and the Tulip chairs and tables that banished what he called “the slum of legs.” A revelation of the A+D show is the 1939 competition-winning design for the Smithsonian Gallery of Art, which was intended to complement, in its architecture and emphasis on contemporary work, John Russell Pope’s National Gallery of Art, then under construction on the north side of the Washington Mall. It’s an accomplished work for a 29-year-old, who was beginning to emerge from the long shadow of his father.