Saarinen, Eero (1910--1961)

Eero Saarinen was the son of influential Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen and followed his father into the architectural profession. In his own right, he pioneered a fluid approach to modern architecture and furniture design in the post-war period. Saarinen extended the modernist vocabulary with flowing curves, interpenetrating spaces, and biomorphic forms, earning a reputation as a ‘structural expressionist’. His architectural works display variety and structural experimentation, with parabolic curves in steel or concrete, while his furniture design exploits the properties of plastic to create organic shapes and saturated colours.