Architecture from D to Z

The first major retrospective of Finnish–born architect Eero Saarinen’s work makes its way to the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in September. The show covers plenty of ground—from airport terminals to monuments to furniture—because Saarinen wasn’t just an architect, he was a fearless pioneer of twentieth-century design. Shown in parts at both the Walker and MIA, the show also represents the first significant collaboration between these two institutions since directors Olga Viso and Kaywin Feldman took the reins of their respective organizations in January.

The exhibition, Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future, features a trove of never-before-seen models, drawings, photographs, and other items from the Saarinen archive, which was recently donated to Yale University. Covering fifty finished projects and many others that were never completed, the show not only provides a rare look at Saarinen’s groundbreaking (and, at the time, unorthodox) body of work, but also elevates his standing within the annals of postwar architecture, a development some would argue is long overdue.

If you doubt Saarinen’s profound influence on postwar American architecture, just look at the Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota. The building, designed by Frank Gehry, owes no small debt to Saarinen, whose unconventionality and determination to push and pull at the edges of modern architecture inspired Gehry, among others, to do the same. “Saarinen created buildings with very unusual forms,” says the exhibition’s curator, Donald Albrecht, coeditor of the exhibit catalogue—forms that questioned all the architectural dogmas that preceded him.

“I cannot help but think that it’s only the ABC of the alphabet,” Saarinen said in response to the first wave of modern architecture. “If we’re to bloom into a full, really great style of architecture, which I think we will, we have to learn many more letters.”

A quick survey of Saarinen’s structures shows just how serious he was in this conviction. His TWA terminal in New York looks nothing like his IBM corporate campus in Rochester, Minnesota, which looks nothing like his John Deere building in Moline, Illinois.

“Saarinen believed we needed to expand on modernism, and each new building was a lab for experimenting with new ideas,” says Albrecht. “He added letters to the alphabet of modern architecture.” Sept. 13– Jan. 4. Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2400 3rd Ave. S., Mpls., 612-870-3131; Walker Art Center, 1750 Hennepin Ave., Mpls., 612-375-7600