Archinect - News

Design Agendas: Modern Architecture in St. Louis, 1930s–1970s

2024-08-16T16:13:00-04:00

The story of modern architecture in St. Louis is complex and often contradictory.

Beginning in the 1930s, internationally known architects such as Eric Mendelsohn, Eero Saarinen and Minoru Yamasaki — alongside important regional and national figures like Harris Armstrong, Charles Fleming, Joseph Murphy and Gyo Obata — created iconic structures that embodied new ideas about form and, in many cases, democratic social organization. Yet the period also was marked by racial segregation and by large-scale demolitions throughout the urban core.

This fall, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will present “Design Agendas: Modern Architecture in St. Louis, 1930s–1970s.” With nearly 300 architectural drawings, models, photographs, films, digital maps and artworks, “Design Agendas” is the first major exhibition to examine how interlocking civic, cultural and racial histories, as well as conflicting ideological aims, reshaped the city.

“I lived in Pruitt-Ig...

Restoration of Saarinen-designed First Christian Church tower completed in Columbus, Indiana

2024-02-23T08:03:00-05:00

The Landmark Columbus Foundation has shared photos of Louis Joyner Architect's completed tower restoration of the landmark First Christian Church in Columbus, Indiana, designed by Eero Saarinen and his father, Eliel, in 1942.

The project took eight months to complete, wrapping up this past December.

The church’s 166-foot-high freestanding clock tower served as the main focus of the restoration work, which took place in four main parts, with repairs also needed to account for significant masonry cracking, rust, and water damage to its interior.

Photo: Hadley Fruits for Landmark Columbus Foundation

Contractors stabilized the 50 uppermost feet of the tower by first removing its east and west walls and then taking the brick veneer off its north and south edifices, removing parapets, and then installing a new concrete block support onto the 166-foot-tall structure.

Photo: Hadley Fruits for Landmark Columbus Foundation

The brick veneer was later re-installed in addition to locally quarr...

Eero Saarinen's CBS 'Black Rock' Manhattan tower gets a gentle overhaul by Vocon and MdeAS

2023-08-08T11:21:00-04:00

A $36 million restoration of Eero Saarinen’s 1964 corporate headquarters for CBS in Manhattan has been announced by New York-based Harbor Group International, LLC (HGI) ahead of the project’s expected completion early this fall.

The architect’s lone skyscraper design, an ominous 38-story masterpiece of sable granite and polished concrete, is now renamed 51W52 in reflection of its Midtown location and features a pair of newly-renovated lobbies, restored bronze fin wall exterior, elevator bays, and lounge areas “curated” with Saarinen's own furniture designs for the Knoll company that were originally manufactured between 1948 and the late-1950s.

Image courtesy Harbor Group International, LLC

The building, which offers proximity to Grand Central Station, the 53rd Street corridor, MoMA, and Rockefeller Center, received a landmark designation from the city in 1997 and was renovated along similar lines in 1992 in an effort Paul Goldberger then criticized as “an attempt to convert one of th...

A look back at Charles & Ray Eames' lesser-known designs in honor of their symmetry in life and death

2022-08-22T18:31:00-04:00

Yesterday's date, August 21st, occupies a unique place in architectural and design history as the day when Charles and Ray Eames both passed away, separated by a decade (1978 and 1988), respectively.

The shared life and work of the iconic power couple has since become the subject of numerous books, catalogs, museum retrospectives, and an excellent 2011 documentary (to name only a few), and enjoys an outsized place in the rich lineage of other husband-and-wife architectural partnerships continued today by the work of SO – IL, TWBTA, Höweler + Yoon, DS+R, and many others.

From the possible influence on early hip-hop carried on later by Ice Cube and Michael Ford, to Ray’s rediscovered RIBA Gold Medal speech, the studio’s legacy as ongoing source of inspiration, and the tranquility of watching perhaps their most famous design being assembled by hand, Archinect has explored the output of their relationship from a number of different angles over the years. All are exemplary of the many me...

The grandson of Eliel Saarinen is working on new documentary highlighting pioneering Finnish-American architect

2020-07-31T13:42:00-04:00

Eric Saarinen, the son of Eero Saarinen, is working on a new documentary highlighting the work of his grandfather, noted Finnish-American architect Eliel Saarinen.

The Detroit News reports that the documentary comes after Eric's work on a previous PBS special highlighting the legacy of his father, with whom he had an estranged and antagonistic relationship.

Eric tells The Detroit News that his work on the Eero 2016 documentary Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future with director and producer Peter Rosen helped him come to terms and ultimately forgive his father for abandoning the family in the 1950s after having an affair with a reporter for The New York Times.

The documentary highlighting the career and works of the elder Saarinen is currently under development, a release date has not been announced.

PHOTOS: The TWA Hotel at JFK is officially open!

2019-05-15T18:14:00-04:00

The much-anticipated rebirth of Eero Saarinen’s historic TWA Flight Center at JFK Airport is complete. The TWA Hotel officially opened on Wednesday, more than two years after the project broke ground in Queens and over 18 years since the iconic 1962 terminal shuttered. Developed by MCR and Morse Development, the two six-story crescent-shaped buildings contain 512 rooms, a rooftop infinity pool and observation deck, event space, food hall, luxury fitness center, and retro cocktail bar.

Photo courtesy of TWA Hotel/David Mitchell

TWA Hotel at Saarinen's iconic Flight Center to open in May

2019-02-08T18:14:00-05:00

It’s official: The TWA Hotel will start taking reservations on February 14, in anticipation of a soft opening on May 15. [...] The hotel’s opening will be the culmination of years of work to revive Eero Saarinen’s beloved midcentury landmark. The TWA Flight Center, a stunning example of Space Age architecture, closed in 2001, and has largely been hidden from public view since then, save for a few tours and events here and there.

The TWA Hotel at JFK Airport previously on Archinect.

From rotary phones to martini bars, the new TWA Hotel at JFK Airport travels back to 1962

2018-04-24T11:42:00-04:00

It was 1962 all over again at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport yesterday. After three years in development, the public got a first glimpse of the highly anticipated TWA Hotel—and it’s groovy. With the Eero Saarinen-designed TWA Flight Center as its centerpiece and spiritual core, the 512-room hotel is poised to be a shrine to the so-called golden age of travel.

Connected to Eero Saarinen's TWA Flight Center, the new TWA Hotel plays up its architectural history — from the authentic Saarinen-designed Womb Chairs in each guest room to the rotary telephones. Certainly, the four-star plus hotel is equipped with contemporary amenities, like 512 “ultra-quiet” guest rooms with soundproof glass, conference space for up to 1,400 people, a museum devoted to the Jet Age, and a rooftop observation deck and pool, to name a few.

TWA Hotel behind Saarinen's iconic JFK terminal tops out

2017-12-15T18:13:00-05:00

That didn’t take long: Just about a year after celebrating the groundbreaking of the TWA Hotel, the developer behind the project, MCR, has announced that it’s topped out. The hotel will complement—and connect to—Eero Saarinen’s iconic 1962 TWA Flight Center. The whole shebang is on track to open in early 2019 as the TWA Hotel.

Tradition for Sale

2017-10-31T17:29:00-04:00

Yale has just completed two new residential colleges near the heart of campus: a superblock of neo-Gothic fantasy. This reversion to an archaic visual language exemplifies a troubling trend. With their new architecture, universities all too often abdicate leadership in promoting artistic innovation as they pander to plutocratic donors.

Columnist Belmont Freeman takes a critical look at Yale's RAMSA-designed Benjamin Franklin College and Pauli Murray College in his latest piece for Places.

While Freeman marvels at their extraordinary evocation of tradition, he argues that their historicism represents a missed opportunity to reinvent the residential college for the 21st century — as Saarinen did on the same campus in the middle of the 20th.

'My Dad, the Starchitect': an emerging documentary subgenre

2017-10-16T14:21:00-04:00

In an emerging subgenre of architectural documentary, Nathaniel Kahn, Tomas Koolhaas, and Eric Saarinen take a personal look at their mythologized fathers. [...] Whether a film deals in the social or monumental legacy of an architect, the idea of the genius—which has been so unevenly applied—should come under scrutiny. As the children of architects have conferred through these films, nobody can be all things to all people.

In her piece for CityLab, Daisy Alioto looks at three recent examples of iconic architects having their life's work documented in film by their sons: Rem Koolhaas in REM, produced by Tomas Koolhaas; Eero Saarinen in Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future, by Eric Saarinen; and Louis Kahn in My Architect, a film by Nathaniel Kahn.

In case you missed it, listen to our One-to-One podcast interview with Tomas Koolhaas.

The New York Times travels to Eero Saarinen's Michigan (and follows up with an unfortunately ignorant tweet)

2017-10-09T19:09:00-04:00

While Saarinen’s groundbreaking works gave him international prominence, many people don’t realize that his earliest architectural and design laboratory was in Michigan.

John L. Dorman, for the travel section of the New York Times explored Michigan's modern architecture, and more specifically, buildings by modern architect Eliel Saarinen and his son Eero. He reports visiting the Saarinen's house designed by Eliel and the first buildings realized by Eero, such as his office, the University of Michigan School of Music, Dance and Theatre, and the General Motors Technical Center. The article describes the genesis of Eliel's career in Michigan before becoming famous internationally.

The New York Times shared the article with a tweet insinuating that midwest architecture wasn't renown, generating many angry responses.

JFK’s TWA Hotel on track to open in 18 months

2017-09-29T11:29:00-04:00

MCR Development officially launched the mid-century modern TWA Lounge on the 86th floor of One World Trade Center on Thursday and provided a deeper look into plans to convert Eero Saarinen’s historic TWA flight center at JFK Airport into a hotel, event space, and dining destination. According to MCR’s CEO Tyler Morse, construction of the hotel is on schedule; it will go vertical on Monday, top out in December, and have its curtainwall applied by January.

If everything remains on schedule, the project is expected to open in 18 months.

The designer that Columbus, a film featuring numerous Modernist icons, forgot about

2017-08-25T16:11:00-04:00

The Miller House and Garden, now owned by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, is acknowledged as one of the greatest Modernist collaborations. This thirteen-acre property was developed between 1953 and 1957 as a unified design through the close teamwork of Kiley, architects Eero Saarinen and Kevin Roche, interior designer Alexander Girard (who is acknowledged in the film), and clients J. Irwin and Xenia Miller.

The recent film Columbus is centered around a love story of a son of a renowned architecture critic stuck in a small Midwestern town and a 'young architecture enthusiast' who works at the local library. Taking place in mid-century Modernism mecca, Columbus, IN, the motion picture spares plenty of spectacular views of iconic Modernist sites: the Miller House, North Christian Church (1964), Cummins Inc. Irwin Office Building (1954), First Christian Church (1942), and Columbus Regional Hospital Mental Health Center (1972). The characters, surprisingly, do not fail to acknowledge the architects at each location—there are mentions of Eero and Eliel Saarinen, James Polshek... However, Dan Kiley, whose landscapes are often the movie's pivotal settings, got left out and never once credited.

Kiley designed more projects in Columbus than any architect—over thirty landscapes which among many others include the Art Institute of Chicago, South Garden (1962), Jefferson National Expansion Expansio...

'TWA Hotel' hopes to revive Saarinen's iconic terminal at JFK

2016-12-07T13:01:00-05:00

water would bubble again in Isamu Noguchi’s green marble fountain in the Ambassador Lounge, softly masking the tik-a-tik-a-tik-a-tik-a-tik chatter of a Solari di Udine split-flap display board announcing flight departures and arrivals [...] The architects of the hotel project are Beyer Blinder Belle and Lubrano Ciavarra Architects. Beyer Blinder Belle was responsible for the sumptuous restoration of Grand Central Terminal in Midtown Manhattan.

The $265 million TWA Hotel project, slated to open in late 2018, would be connected to Saarinen's Trans World Flight Center and Terminal 5 through tubes that used to guide passengers from TWF to their aircraft. As reported by the Times, the Hotel plan has been hailed by preservationists for its restoration of the terminal, which will require developer MCR to "remediate asbestos throughout the headhouse and rebuild or update mechanical systems." However, preservationists aren't so jazzed about the hotel's six stories, one fearing its height would "effectively imprison the headhouse, both reducing the amount of natural light entering it and severely restricting the outward views from the interior.”

For more on Saarinen's terminal and happenings at JFK:

Eero Saarinen documentary to air on PBS Dec. 27th

2016-12-01T13:27:00-05:00

For those who are interested in seeing Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future (reviewed her e on Archinect), they'll have their chance on December 27th when PBS airs the documentary as part of its American Masters Series. The film, which charts both Eero's professional and personal stories, will officially be released on DVD on January 3rd, 2017 from PBS distribution. In the meantime, here's a clip from the film where Eliel Saarinen finds out it is not him but his son Eero who has won the competition for St. Louis memorial design:

Eero Saarinen's CIA weapon-designing past

2016-06-22T13:27:00-04:00

Saarinen’s work for the spy agency mostly involved designing models of buildings and weapons that had yet to be built. He even worked on designs for the original war room in the White House. And the people at OSS claimed that he was so good at his job that he could not be replaced.

It's lucky for architecture that Eero Saarinen, who was known in the CIA as "Architectural Designer (Chief, Special Exhibits Division)" wasn't so successful at his work for the agency that he couldn't be replaced, although one wonders how much of that top secret work rubbed off on his later designs...

For an in-depth look at trained architects who have succeeded in other pursuits:

Eero Saarinen's love letters

2016-02-12T18:39:00-05:00

The letters are written to Aline Bernstein Louchheim, who became Saarinen's second wife in 1954. The Archives of American Art have an impressive collection of photos and letters from Eero and Aline, which you can view here.

Editor's Picks #437

2015-12-16T11:51:00-05:00

Nicholas Korody penned a double review; of 'The Geological Imagination' and 'The Underdome Guide to Energy Reform'. He finds "The two books also help illuminate some of the difficulties in perceiving climate change, while offering some potentials for movement" and goes on to reference "enmeshment", systems thinking and dark ecology.

Plus, Robert Urquhart took stock of how The Bartlett and the Architectural Association are "bringing emerging technologies into the UK's architecture education".

News
Denise Scott Brown, along with her husband Robert Venturi, have won the 2016 AIA Gold Medal. Snubbed of the 1991 Pritzker Prize when Venturi was named as the only laureate, Scott Brown is the second female recipient of the Gold Medal.

In honor of the happy and historic occasion, Denise Scott Brown appeared on Archinect Sessions #45.

To DWLindeman it "is splendid good news, and a long overdue award...Robert Venturi was right to say to the AIA ‘not without Denise.’ This is also a very significan...

Eero Saarinen's dormant JFK terminal to become Jet Blue hotel

2015-09-18T12:33:00-04:00

JetBlue and MCR will build hotel rooms from the ground up next to the terminal and refurbish the interior of the building to become the property’s main entrance. [...] It is to have 505 rooms, 40,000 square feet of meeting space, up to eight eateries and an observation deck. The old terminal will serve as the lobby, with the rest of the hotel set back from it in a new building.

Jet Blue's hotel will be JFK's first, finally utilizing Saarinen's masterpiece after 14 years (and counting) of vacancy.

For more news at JFK:

Susan S. Szenasy on the Importance of Design in the Everyday

2015-04-27T19:19:00-04:00

Inside the soon-to-be-demolished A+D Museum in Los Angeles, a small group gathered last week for a conversation with Susan S. Szenasy, the Editor-in-Chief of Metropolis Magazine, followed by a signing of her new book of collected writings, Szenasy, Design Advocate. The talk is likely the last the museum will host in its Miracle Mile location, as the museum prepares to move to a new home in the Downtown Arts District following the expropriation of the current building to make room for an extension of the Metro Red Line. Moderated by architecture writer and curator Greg Goldin (whose previous “Never Built: Los Angeles” exhibition was on show at the A+D in 2013), the conversation focused on the personal relationships we have with design in everyday life.

“I was always railing against the idea that people were never talked about in architecture,” Szenasy recalled of her formative years at Interior magazine. “Designers reflect us back to ourselves,” she added a bit later. “They have a hug...

JetBlue tapped as prospective developer for JFK TWA terminal

2015-04-16T17:34:00-04:00

[JetBlue Airways] reportedly wants to get into the hotel business by partnering with New York-based hotel developer MCR Development to turn the landmarked terminal into a 500-room hotel. The deal isn't final—the parties are in 'advanced negotiations'—so things could still fall apart...The Port Authority previously chose hotelier Andre Balazs as the developer, but Balazs backed out after realizing how long the project would take. He told the [WSJ] his company had 'more interesting opportunities.'

Previously: Hotelier Andre Balazs to convert JFK’s historic TWA terminal into a hotel and conference center

Joshua Zinder Architecture + Design selected for adaptive reuse of former Bell Labs

2013-10-29T18:58:00-04:00

Joshua Zinder Architecture + Design (JZA+D) has been selected to design tenant spaces for the adaptive reuse of Eero Saarinen's iconic former Bell Labs facility in Holmdel, N.J.

The firm was selected by Somerset Development, which specializes in the creation of award-winning traditional neighborhood design developments, as part of the design team led by internationally recognized architecture firm, Alexander Gorlin Architects, which will oversee the execution of programming, rebranding and restoration of the complex's public and common areas.

Other firms selected for the project include Morristown, N.J.-based NK Architects, which will also design the build-out of tenant spaces within the building.

Somerset Development closed on its acquisition of the building and approximately 470 acres surrounding the facility in late August. The company’s plans include transforming the complex into a "dynamic, mixed-use town center featuring a pedestrian-friendly public promenade" created ...

Gateway Arch 'Biography' Reveals Complex History Of An American Icon

2013-05-28T15:04:00-04:00

More than decade after Abbott's imaginative drawing, Eero Saarinen submitted a design for a gleaming metal curve to a competition, and the saga of the Arch began. Campbell, a history professor and the co-director of the Wendell Ford Public Policy Research Center at the University of Kentucky, joins Scott Simon to talk about the controversy around the design, the African-American residents who were displaced to build the Arch and whether the monument really symbolizes the opening of the West.

Documenting Modern Living: A Tumblr on the creation of Saarinen's Miller House

2012-10-05T11:35:00-04:00

The Miller House and Garden Collection includes correspondence, drawings and blueprints, textile samples, and photographs that document design, construction, and maintenance of the Miller House and Garden in Columbus, Indiana.

In May 2012, the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded the Indianapolis Museum of Art a grant for its project “Documenting Modern Living: Digitizing the Miller House and Garden Collection.” This Tumblr includes archival information giving an intimate view into the working relationship between the clients and designers involved in one of America's most significant modernist houses. The Tumblr has just recently gone live; bookmark it to see updates on all 23,000 pieces in the archive.

A Stunning Survey Of Pics By Eero Saarinen's In-House Photog

2012-08-15T15:02:00-04:00

In 1954, a young Hungarian went to work with Eero Saarinen in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. As his then colleague, Cesar Pelli, describes him: “[He] was a small sensation: he had a fur-trimmed coat, a homburg, and a Van Dyke beard.”... He had been a distinguished architectural student at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, in Paris, and a draftsman under Le Corbusier... he was quickly tapped as the in-house photographer, creating pictures that became indelible symbols of the Mad Men age of Modernism.

Hugh Hardy’s Tow Theater at Lincoln Center

2012-07-17T19:19:18-04:00

The new Claire Tow Theater, perched on top of Eero Saarinen’s Vivian Beaumont Theater, has been in operation for a few weeks now, and it’s a nimble addition to Lincoln Center with architectural benefits out of proportion to its size.

Eero Saarinen's TWA Terminal brought back to life

2011-10-28T13:31:29-04:00

Eero was eating breakfast one morning and using the rind of his grapefruit to describe the terminal shell. He pushed down the center to mimic the depression that he desired and and the grapefruit bulged. This was the seed for the bulges in the shell. - Kevin Roche

Phaidon photographer Bryan Kelly for Phaidon records the three hours of public opening at TWA Terminal building that opened after the extensive renovations by Beyer Binder Belle Architects. No set use agreed upon the restored building. The building was opened in 1962 but its achitect Eero Saarinen did not lived to see it. Before he died he said of the building then under construction, "TWA is beginning to look marvelous. If anything happened and they had to stop work right now and just leave it in this state, I think it would make a beautiful ruin, like the Baths of Caracalla."

Arts & Architecture, 1945-54: The Complete Reprint

2009-01-02T12:19:00-05:00

The LA Times' Greg Goldin reviews the recently released Arts & Architecture, 1945-54: The Complete Reprint

Arts & Architecture, which folded 41 years ago, is the most influential architecture magazine ever published. During the height of its run, from 1945 to 1967, it convinced the world that Los Angeles was at the vanguard of reinventing the single family home. John Entenza, the editor, quietly featured the work of Isamu Noguchi, Henry Moore, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Eero Saarinen, Richard Neutra, George Nelson, Charles Eames, George Nakashima and Bernard Rudofsky.