Eero Saarinen was born in Kirkkonummi, Finland in 1910, but moved to the United States at 13 years old. Eero’s father Eliel Saarinen was a key figure in both Finnish and American architecture, a pioneer of the National Romantic style in his homeland before moving to Bloomfield Hills, Michigan to become president of the Cranbrook Art Academy, where he would influence a generation of American Modernists. From this auspicious background, Eero Saarinen studied sculpture in Paris and later Architecture at Yale University. As his career progressed, he moved away from the rigidity of the International Style, gaining fame in a rapidly changing post-war world through increasingly audacious explorations of sculptural form. Saarinen’s designs for the Ingalls Hockey Ring at Yale University (1958) and the TWA Terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport (1956-1962) typified this exploration of advanced materials and construction methodologies to create evocative interior spaces. At the same time Saarinen became the go-to designer of American mid-century corporate campuses for, amongst others, General Motors (1956), IBM (1958), Bell Labs (1962) and John Deere (1964). Saarinen died in 1961 and never saw some of his most influential work completed.

Robin Boyd visited Eero Saarinen’s office in April 1957 during his first trip to America. Boyd met and was impressed by Saarinen and wrote back to his partners in Australia relaying the encounter. Subsequently, Boyd would write often about Saarinen and his place in the trajectory of mid-century architecture - notably in The Puzzle of Architecture, Engineering of Excitement, Under Tension and The Counter-revolution in Architecture. Boyd sketched a number of Saarinen’s buildings for Puzzle, and photographed them frequently on trips overseas. In 1964, Boyd attended the International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado - the event was held in a tent designed by Saarinen.

More information about Boyd’s encounters with Eero Saarinen.