About this talk

Running time: 53 minutes

Eero Saarinen died just aged 51, at the height of his creative powers. His career was jump-started early with the General Motors Technical Center, lauded as the industrial Versailles. He went on to design an array of distinctly different buildings, including the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the TWA Terminal at JFK Airport, New York, each reflecting the philosophy he shared with Corbusier that every building has within it its own solution.

This talk, one of a series conducted by the architectural publisher John Peter, was recorded in 1956 at Saarinen's remodelled Victorian house in Bloomfield, Michigan. Here he discusses the three great Modernist influences: Frank Lloyd Wright (see The World's Greatest Architect), Le Corbusier and Mies Van der Rohe; the rise of the automobile and the resulting atomisation of the city; and the great body of advice and wisdom passed on to him from his father, not least that architecture must be approached as an art.

You can also hear Saarinen talking with Jørn Utzon and Leslie Martin about the Sydney Opera House in Sydney Opera House, and Martin on his own in A Constructive Point Of View.

Please note that a transcript of this talk is available - please contact us for further details.