![]() ![]() For one thing, IBM’s Rochester inventors have been awarded more than 2,700 U.S. Watson wanted the facility’s identity to be “both populist and aristocratic, contemporary and historic.” Quite an undertaking, but the facility has probably succeeded on all these counts. Watson required that Saarinen’s facility be designed for future expansion, be a good neighbor to the community, foster IBM’s own community of loyal employees, and visually express the character of the new IBM. Merkel calls Rochester the first corporate mixed-use campus-it combined manufacturing, distribution, basic research, engineering and design. The Rochester plant was IBM’s first building outside the East Coast-and also Saarinen’s first corporate campus (a concept he’s said to have invented). He had just taken over from his father, Watson Sr., and wanted to use design and architecture to promote his own vision for IBM’s global leadership, says Museum of the City of New York curator Donald Albrecht, who oversaw the 2009 exhibit, “ Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future.” Watson specified a modernist building to symbolize IBM’s transformation from a national company headquartered in the East to a corporation undergoing exponential growth, with facilities and companies all over the world. The glass panels feature a purple tone and are inclined upwards, allowing travelers to see planes landing and taking off, in a metaphoric celebration of the American Dream.The Rochester plant was commissioned in 1956 by IBM CEO Thomas Watson Jr. With cement “wings”, both sides open towards the outside, just like a bird ready to take off. The structure consisted of a reinforced concrete shell with four segments extending towards the exterior from a central point. In a new interpretation of the German legend’s ideas, a more personal and distinct element was used to complete the project.Īlthough it may be the TWA Terminal of the JFK New York airport that solidified the architect as a forward-thinking innovator. The project exalted the rationalist style of the Modern Movement’s maestro, Mies van der Rohe, made with steel, glass, and the addition of blue colored panels. This time working together, Eero joined forces with Eliel for the General Motors Technical Center in Michigan. So much so, that it wasn’t produced on an industrial scale until 1950 by Vitra.ĭuring his years at Cranbrook, a school famous for its artistic and cultural activities with a free and open approach to new ideas, Eero met Florence Schust Knoll, with whom he would design signature pieces for the soon to be design giant, Knoll.Ĭuriously enough, when the designer and architect won the contest to produce the arch, the award was erroneously given to his father. The winning piece, Organic Chair, featured innovative sculptural forms at the time that were too experimental in terms of working techniques. Both fascinated by the infinite potential of modern materials and new techniques, like fiberglass molding and shell processing, the duo participated in contests together until 1940, when they won first place at MoMA’s “Organic Design in Home Furnishings”. So, it would come as no surprise when Saarinen decided to study art and architecture at the prestigious Cranbrook School and later at Yale after a brief sculptural foray in Europe.Īt Cranbrook, Eero met Charles Eames, where the two connected instantly. His father, a famous Finnish architect, was responsible for the Helsinki train station in 1910, while his mother, Loja Gesellius, was a sculptor and textile designer with refined taste. But as a young Saarinen grew older, he shed his timid tendencies and was thrust into the 20’s with big dreams and a booming economy.Īt home, the youngster lived and breathed art and creativity. The cultural change and newly discovered lifestyle was anything but simple: the shy and reserved boy struggled to accept American candor. In 1923, at just 13 years old, Eero moved to the United States from a village in southern Finland with just a few thousand inhabitants. Saarinen, born in Finland, was also an architect adored in the United States with plenty of curious anecdotes. Everyone knows Eero Saarinen for the Tulip table, but not everyone knows he was much more than an avant-garde designer. ![]()
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