In 1947, Eliel and Eero Saarinen, despite working out of the same architectural firm, submitted independent entries in the competition to design the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.[1] Rising to a height of 630 feet, Eero's winning design, which would come to be known as the St. Louis Gateway Arch, was celebrated for its lithe, celebratory, and thoroughly modern-feeling design.[2] In contrast, Eero's father's design recalled a larger scaled version of an earlier solution for the open entrance pavilion joining the Cranbrook Museum and Library; while both modern in their design, Eero's solution spoke to a newer sort of modernism, with it as the first design that truly separated Saarinen from his father.[3]
The St. Louis Gateway Arch. Courtesy of the National Park Service, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.
Although designed in 1947, Saarinen had to wait 10 years - until 1958, for a railway to be relocated - before work could begin.[4] As Saarinen explains about his choice of design:
In 1948, we won the national competition for a new national park in St. Louis, symbolizing and commemorating the westward expansion of America. The major concern here was to create a monument which would have lasting significance and would be a landmark of our time. An absolutely simple shape - such as the Egyptian pyramids or obelisks - seemed to be the basis of the great memorials that have kept their significance and dignity across time. Neither an obelisk nor a rectangular box nor a dome seemed right on the site or for this purpose. But here, at the edge of the Mississippi river, a great arch did seem right...Having arrived at a shape that seemed to have permanence and to belong to our time, what material would also fulfill these two qualities? Stainless steel seemed the inevitable answer - and so we decided on stainless steel with a concrete core.[5]
Clearly, this was a man with a vision. Beneath the arch, Saarinen built a monumental stair that echoes the curve of the arch above. As you can see in the image below, with his characteristic attention to detail, had a full-scale model built adjacent to his office, so as to be able to test its unusual profile himself.[6]
"Saint Louis Gateway Arch (originally Jefferson National Expansion Memorial), Saint Louis, Missouri, 1947-65; dedicated, 1968. Mock-up of stair." Photographer Balthazar Korab. Published in: Eero Saarinen: buildings from the Balthazar Korab archive / edited by David G. De Long and C. Ford Peatross, 2008. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
Although the St. Louis Gateway Arch helped cement Saarinen's fame, with the design long celebrated before it was able to be built and finally completed in 1965, it was two quite different 1950 commissions where Saarinen proved his work, proving that he could create designs that would be striking departures from the orthodox modernism of his father's age.[7] Saarinen's designs for the Kresge Auditorium and Chapel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) drew widespread attention, helping to establish him as a major architectural innovator.[8]
"Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kresge Auditorium and Chapel, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1950-55. Aerial view." Photographer Balthazar Korab. Published in: Eero Saarinen: buildings from the Balthazar Korab archive / edited by David G. De Long and C. Ford Peatross, 2008. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
Completed in 1956, the pair of buildings were geometrically based, with the auditorium a thin concrete shell derived from a one-eighth part of a sphere, while the chapel was designed as a brick cylinder with a blind-arched base and a superimposed tripod belfry and spire.[9] In Saarinen's own words:
Here, the site, in the middle of crowded city campus, was surrounded by 'man-made' nature of building about six storeys high, buildings which were essentially boxes with holes pierced in them all around. The questions was how to relate the auditorium to these buildings...We believed hat what was required was a contrasting silhouette, a form which started from the ground and went up, carrying the eye around its sweeping shape. Thus, a domed structure seemed right...The chapel present quite a different problem. After many experiments, exploring different shapes in the site plan, the round cylindrical form seemed right...We made many designs searching for the right form and the right proportion for the bell-tower. I believe that the architect has to determine the basic form and mass and scale of such elements. But since such a spire was really something halfway between architecture and sculpture, we felt that a sculptor who would be sympathetic to the architectural problem as we saw it could bring to the spire a special sensitivity. I think Theodore Roszak has done this job extremely well.[10]
"Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kresge Auditorium and Chapel, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1950-55. Auditorium with Chapel in foreground." Photographer Balthazar Korab. Published in: Eero Saarinen: buildings from the Balthazar Korab archive / edited by David G. De Long and C. Ford Peatross, 2008. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
As can be seen in the image above, although striking in its design, neither the triangular shape that Saarinen had believed ideal for an auditorium nor the domed roof turned out to be acoustically effective, and later modifications had to be made.[11] His design for the Chapel, however, not only proved more workable, but judging by accounts from the time, and as can be seen in the image below, its interior was truly captivating.[12] As David G. De Long explains in his introduction to the book Eero Saarinen: Buildings from the Balthazar Korab Archives, "It seemed to achieve the very atmosphere of timelessness that Saarinen sought, one detached from a standard modernist vocabulary and sensuously evocative without recourse to specific historical quotation. A single skylight animates an alter screen by Harry Bertoia, and glazed segments of the floor at the perimeter, behind a low, undulating wall, produce a subdued, flickering glow."[13]
"Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kresge Auditorium and Chapel, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1950-55. Chapel interior." Photographer Balthazar Korab. Published in: Eero Saarinen: buildings from the Balthazar Korab archive / edited by David G. De Long and C. Ford Peatross, 2008. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
[1] David G. De Long, "Introduction: Rediscovering Eero Saarinen," in Eero Saarinen: Buildings from the Balthazar Korab Archives, ed. David G. De Long and C. Ford Peatross, (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 2008), 12.
[2] Ibid., 12.
[3] Ibid., 13.
[4] Rupert Spade, "Introduction," Library of Contemporary Architects: Eero Saarinen (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971), 19.
[5] Eero Saarinen, "Architects and Architecture," in Eero Saarinen On His Work, ed. Aline B. Saarinen, (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1962), 18.
[6] David G. De Long, "Introduction: Rediscovering Eero Saarinen," in Eero Saarinen: Buildings from the Balthazar Korab Archives, ed. David G. De Long and C. Ford Peatross, (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 2008), 12-13.
[7] Ibid., 12-13.
[8] Ibid., 13.
[9] Rupert Spade, "Introduction," Library of Contemporary Architects: Eero Saarinen (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971), 13.
[10] Eero Saarinen, "Architects and Architecture," in Eero Saarinen On His Work, ed. Aline B. Saarinen, (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1962), 34-36.
[11] David G. De Long, "Introduction: Rediscovering Eero Saarinen," in Eero Saarinen: Buildings from the Balthazar Korab Archives, ed. David G. De Long and C. Ford Peatross, (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 2008), 14.
[12] Ibid., 14.
[13] Ibid., 14.
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