The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘American Masters’ spotlights work of Eero Saarinen Tuesday
NEW HAVEN » Eero Saarinen, who designed Yale University’s Ingalls Rink and Morse and Ezra Stiles colleges, died at 51 during an operation for a brain tumor in 1961. On Tuesday, his enduring genius will be explored in an “American Masters” program on PBS called “Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future.”
Filmmaker Peter Rosen convinced Eero’s son Eric Saarinen to visit the sites of his father’s work on something of a cathartic journey; Eric also serves here as director of photography and co-producer as the show takes a loving look at Saarinen’s neofuturistic projects such as the St. Louis Arch, the TWA Flight Center at JFK Airport, the General Motors Technical Center, the Yale buildings (he was an alum) and Dulles Airport, not to mention the famous Tulip chair.
“Closure was something I didn’t have with my dad. But I forgive him for his genius,” said Eric Saarinen, a cinematographer. “He figured out a way to be important across time, so even though he died young, he is still alive.”
The 8 p.m. program (also available on DVD Jan. 3) is shot in 6K high resolution and with the latest in drone technology that showcases the architect’s work in an appropriately sweeping and attractive way.
As “American Masters” explains: Eero was the
FROM PAGE 1 son of prominent Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen and textile designer Loja Saarinen, so he was surrounded by design his whole life. Eero attended Cranbrook Academy of Art, designed by Eliel, who taught there and became the school’s first president as well as the chief architect of the Cranbrook campus, with Eero designing details like gargoyles and chairs. Eric ‘s family and their friends were collaborators, including his godparents, designers Charles and Ray Eames.
“This film is both an immersive look at an architect’s work and a fatherson story across generations,” says Rosen in the news release. “Once Eric agreed to go on this journey with me, I knew the results would be compelling and revealing.”
In describing one of his father’s swooping roof designs in the program, Eric says, “It’s literally perched on these (low) corners. Just like the Arch or just like everything else he does, it’s a magic trick.”
Also interviewed in the program, says PBS, are architects Kevin Roche, César Pelli, Rafael Viñoly and Robert A. M. Stern, along with industrial designer Niels Diffrient, who all worked with or were influenced by Saarinen. Other architecture critics, curators and authors explain why Saarinen’s work stands apart and continues to inspire folks, especially with the renewed interest in 20th-century architects.