Gottlieb Eliel Saarinen (August 20, 1873,Rantasalmi, Finland – July 1, 1950, Cranbrook, Michigan, United States) was a Finnish architect, who became famous for his art nouveau buildings in the early years of the 20th century.

Eliel Saarinen moved to the United States in the 1923 after his noted competition entry for the Tribune Tower in Chicago, and continued his professional and academic career based in Michigan. In 1925 George G. Booth asked him to design the campus of Cranbrook Educational Center, intended as an American equivalent to the Bauhaus. Saarinen taught there and became president of the Cranbrook Academy in 1932. Among his student-collaborators were Ray Eames (then Ray Kaiser) and Charles Eames; Saarinen influenced their subsequent furniture design.

He became a professor in the University of Michigan's Architecture Department; today a professorship at Michigan's A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning is named for him, and the College holds an annual lecture series in his honor. His son, Eero (1910–1961), was also an important architect, one of the leaders of the International style.

Buildings

• Pavilion in the world exhibition in Paris 1900
• Finnish National Museum in Helsinki 1902–1911
• Helsinki Railway Station 1904–1911
• Vyborg Railway Station (today in Russia) 1904–1913
• First Christian Church Columbus, Indiana, United States
• Kleinhans Music Hall, Buffalo, New York; designed in collaboration with his son Eero Saarinen
• Original Wing Des Moines Art Center in Des Moines, Iowa 1945–1948
• The Cranbrook Educational Community in Bloomfield Hills, MI.

External links

• Eliel Saarinen page at archINFORM