Happy Birthday Eliel and Eero Saarinen!


Cranbrook Sightings Blog

CRANBROOK SIGHTING: SAARINEN HOUSE, CRANBROOK ACADEMY OF ART CAMPUS Dining Room, completed circa 1930; restored 1992 - 1994 Interior and furniture design by Eliel Saarinen Placemat designs by Eero Saarinen Textile designs by Loja Saarinen and Greta SkogsterEliel and Eero Saarinen, 1941. Photo by Betty Truxell, courtesy of Cranbrook ArchivesAugust 20th is a big occasion here at Cranbrook--the day both our campus architect Eliel Saarinen (Finnish, 1873 - 1950) and his architect son Eero (Finnish-American, 1910 - 1961) entered this world! In honor of two great men from one of the design community's most accomplished families (read blog posts about matriarch Loja Saarinen here and Eero's big sister Pipsan here), today on the blog we'll visit the Saarinen House dining room, where father-and-son birthdays were most certainly celebrated on many an August 20th throughout the 1930s.Saarinen House Dining Room, designed 1928; restored 1994. Photo by Balthazar Korab, (c) Cranbrook Art Museum.Eliel Saarinen designed Saarinen ...

Tagged: Eero Saarinen, Eliel Saarinen, Saarinen House, Shelley Selim

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Pipsan: The Lesser-Known (But No Less Impressive!) Saarinen Sibling


Cranbrook Sightings BlogInside the Vault

CRANBROOK SIGHTING: INSIDE THE VAULT Sol-Air Canvas Chaise Lounge, c. 1950 Pipsan Saarinen Swanson and J. Robert F. Swanson for Swanson and Associates Iron, rope, and canvas 34 x 23 x 24 in. (86.4 x 58.4 x 61 cm) Transfered from the Cranbrook Academy of Art If it were up to me, every month would be Women's History Month, but alas for the foreseeable future it is *officially* delegated to March in the United States, and today is our last chance to celebrate! How auspicious that March 31 also happens to be the birthday of Pipsan (born Eva Lisa) Saarinen Swanson, designer of furniture, interiors, fashion, and textiles, and younger sister of one of the most recognizable names in modern architecture, Eero Saarinen. Pipsan's father Eliel was of course the architect of the Cranbrook Campus and President of the Cranbrook Academy of Art from 1932-1946, but before being lured to Bloomfield Hills by Cranbrook founder George ...

Tagged: Eero Saarinen, Eliel Saarinen, Furniture, Pipsan Saarinen, Robert F. Swanson, Shelley Selim

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A Road Trip by Design, Part 1


Cranbrook Sightings Blog

CRANBROOK SIGHTING #5 Sighter: Chad Alligood Sighted: Eero Saarinen’s Miller House, 1953-57 Location: Columbus, IN Date:  February 22, 2013 I love a good road trip. Chintzy roadside attractions, late-night caffeine stops, full-blast radio singing—I’m quite at home behind the wheel at 65 MPH. Road trips satisfy my compulsion to wander while feeding my admiration of classic American kitsch. My recent talk at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft provided the perfect excuse for a meandering journey from Michigan to Kentucky in my trusty ’91 Toyota Camry. At the behest of our preparator extraordinaire and resident design nerd Mark Baker, I scheduled a stop in Columbus, Indiana on the way down. Why Columbus, you might ask? The answers are so awesome and numerous that they require two blog posts. The first, and perhaps awesomest, is Eero Saarinen’s Miller House. Eero completed a relatively small number of residential commissions in his lifetime; Miller House certainly counts among ...

Tagged: Architecture, Chad Alligood, Columbus, IN, Eero Saarinen, IN

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