Eliel Saarinen, FAIA

Year Awarded: 1947
Born: August 20, 1873; Rantasalmi, Finland
Died: 1950; Cranbrook,Michigan


Projects
• 1949: Christ Church Lutheran, Minneapolis, Minn.
• 1942: First Christian Church, Columbus, Ind.
• 1940: Crow Island School, Winnetka, Ill. (recipient of the AIA Twenty-five Year Award, 1971)
• 1926-1941: Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
• 1919: Finnish National Museum, Helsinki
• 1913: Vyborg Railway Station, Russia
• 1911: Helsinki Railway Station
• 1903: Olofsborg house, Helsinki
• 1902: Hvitträsk, Helsinki
• 1901: Pohjola Insurance Building, Helsinki
• 1900: Finnish Pavilion, 1900 World’s Fair, Paris


Biography
Eliel Saarinen studied architecture at Helsinki Polytechnic. In 1896 he opened an office with two friends from school, Herman Gesellius and Armas Lindgren. In 1923 he moved to the United States after winning second place in a competition for the Tribune Tower design in Chicago. He taught at the University of Michigan during the school year 1924-1925.

In 1925, at the request of George Booth, a Detroit newspaperman, Saarinen began the design of the campus of the Cranbrook Academy of Art, in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. Saarinen taught at Cranbrook and served as its president in 1932. In the mid-1930s, Saarinen practiced architecture with his son Eero, who became his partner in 1937.

Besides his designs for Cranbrook, Eliel Saarinen is known for his buildings at Bloomfield Hills and for churches he designed in Columbus, Minneapolis, and Chicago. He also designed the Art Center at Des Moines in Iowa.

Saarinen received the AIA Gold Medal on April 30, 1947, at the Pantlind Hotel, Grand Rapids, Mich.