Saarinen, Gottlieb Eliel (1873–1950)

Gottlieb Eliel Saarinen, better known as Eliel Saarinen, was an architect who practiced in his native Finland for twenty-five years before beginning a new phase of his career in the United States. He initially worked in a Jugendstil manner and played a central role in developing the national romanticist style that emerged in several European countries c.1890–1901. Immigrating to the USA in 1923, he gravitated toward the minimalist functionalism of the Modern Movement. Saarinen designed the campus for the Cranbrook Academy of Art, and, under his stewardship, the academy became one of the most influential design schools in the country.