At first, the monorail runs straight from the subway station towards the airport. Then as it nears terminal 5 there’s a fork in the tracks and the monorail starts to veer towards saarinen’s TWA terminal. (click here for saarinen hotel) The arcing approach of the monorail complements the sweeping lines of saarinen’s roof. Opened in 1962, the twa terminal heralded the age of the jet. The roofs soar like wings rising up to the sky harboring large expansive glazed views of the runways beyond. Now it has been turned into a hotel, as its original design couldn’t handle the larger airplane designs introduced in the 2000’s. Eero Saarinen spent much of his life working in the shadows of his father’s firm, Eliel Saarinen (famous for Helsinki train station, hvrittask house) ... mostly traditional architecture like cranbrook art school derived from its Finnish roots.
Once his father passed away, eero pushed the limits of stuctural expression of concrete shells. Cesar Pelli, later the dean of Yale, and architect of the Kuala Lumpur twin towers cut his teeth calculating, defining and drawing the curves of the roof for the TWA drawing set by hand. For concrete, engineers give architects a set of parameters regarding slab thickness and allowable spans. The architects work with those guidelines in the back of their minds to sculpt the material for their aims. Eero only outlived his dad by 13 years as he passed away early from an aneurysm but he left behind a legacy beyond his sculptural buildings like Yale hockey rink (see below), mit kresge auditorium, and twa terminal at jfk airport. Partnering with cranbrook architecture teacher Charles eames, he developed the tulip chair. Arriving late as a juror for the Sydney opera house in 1957, he found Utzon’s entry in the reject pile and single handedly convinced the rest of the jury to award Utzon the job. He found elements in Utzon’s design to be similar to the elements found in his concrete structures and forms.
Once his father passed away, eero pushed the limits of stuctural expression of concrete shells. Cesar Pelli, later the dean of Yale, and architect of the Kuala Lumpur twin towers cut his teeth calculating, defining and drawing the curves of the roof for the TWA drawing set by hand. For concrete, engineers give architects a set of parameters regarding slab thickness and allowable spans. The architects work with those guidelines in the back of their minds to sculpt the material for their aims. Eero only outlived his dad by 13 years as he passed away early from an aneurysm but he left behind a legacy beyond his sculptural buildings like Yale hockey rink (see below), mit kresge auditorium, and twa terminal at jfk airport. Partnering with cranbrook architecture teacher Charles eames, he developed the tulip chair. Arriving late as a juror for the Sydney opera house in 1957, he found Utzon’s entry in the reject pile and single handedly convinced the rest of the jury to award Utzon the job. He found elements in Utzon’s design to be similar to the elements found in his concrete structures and forms.
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