Armless Executive Chair with Tubular Legs by Eero Saarinen for Herman Miller, USA, 1960s

Eero Saarinen (1910-1961) was a Finnish-born American industrial designer and architect who helped pioneer the neo-futurism style and redefining modernism in midcentury America. Son to influential architect Eliel Saarinen (1873-1950) and sculpturist and textile designer Lola Gesellius Saarinen (1879-1968), Saarinen from an early age exhibited a strong interest in design and architecture.  At the age of thirteen, he and his family emigrated to America, where he went on to study sculpture and furniture design at the Bauhaus-inspired Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. (His father taught there as well.) There he befriended future design luminaries Charles Eames (1907–1978) and Florence Knoll (née Schust, b. 1917). In 1929, he continued his education at Paris’s Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and subsequently at Yale University, graduating with a degree in architecture in 1934.

In 1936, Saarinen joined his father’s architectural practice, which was renamed Eero Saarinen & Associates after his father passed in 1950. His well-known projects include the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri (1947); the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan (1956); the main terminal of Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. (1958); and the TWA Terminal at Kennedy International Airport (1962).

Beyond Saarinen’s many architectural accomplishments, he also maintained a successful career in furniture design. In 1940, working in collaboration with Charles Eames, he designed a collection of plywood chairs, which won first prize in all categories for the Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Though the chairs never made it into production, Saarinen designed many other iconic pieces for friends Hans and Florence Knoll, including the Grasshopper Lounge Chair and Ottoman (1946), Womb Chair and Ottoman (1948), and the Tulip Collection (1956)—arguably his most famous series which featured side chairs  and armchairs , as well as coffee , dining , and side tables .

Saarinen died at the age of 51 during surgery to remove a brain tumor. His business partners Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo at Saarinen & Associates completed his ten remaining projects.

Designing in postwar America, Saarinen is known for introducing curvilinear and organically-inspired forms into both his architecture and industrial designs. Over the course of his career, Saarinen received many awards and accolades, including becoming a fellow of the American Institute of Architecture in 1952 and winning the AIA Gold Medal posthumously in 1962. Saarinen’s designs have been featured in exhibitions around the world, including the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. and the Museum of Finnish Architecture in New York.

Herman Miller came into being in 1923 when a company man by the name of D. J. De Pree (1891-1990) bought the majority shares of the Michigan Star Furniture Company, with the help of his father-in-law, for whom he named the new venture. Like other furniture manufacturers in West Michigan at the time, De Pree focused on the production of replicas of ornate, 18^th- and 19^th-century European wood furnishings, until a bankruptcy scare brought on by the Great Depression drove him to seek a new direction. In 1931, De Pree brought in commercial artist Gilbert Rohde, who convinced De Pree that honest, functional designs characterized by clean, simple lines were the way forward—and thus set the course for Herman Miller’s influence on what would become known as the midcentury modern style. Two years later, the first Rohde-designed collection debuted at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago.

After Rohde passed away in 1944, De Pree hired architect-designer George Nelson as the company’s first official design director. By crafting a new, compelling corporate identity and collaborating with some of the most visionary designers of the day—Charles and Ray Eames, Isamu Noguchi, and Alexander Girard —Nelson earned the company international acclaim. Under his leadership, Herman Miller created some of the 20^th century’s most iconic objects, such as the Eameses’ DCM “Potato Chip” Chair (1945/46), Molded Fiberglass Chair (1950), and Eames Lounge Chair (1956); Noguchi’s Noguchi Table (1948); and Nelson’s own Bubble Lamps (1955) and Marshmallow Sofa (1965), to name a few. Notably, the Action Office Project I series by Robert Propst (1964) paved the way for adjustable and semi-enclosed work environments (a.k.a. cubicles) at a time when modernist design was increasingly adopted as the style for American corporate interiors. More recent office bestsellers include Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick’s ubiquitous Aeron Chair (1994) and Studio 7.5’s high-tech, environmentally friendly Mirra Chair (2003).

Today Herman Miller and German manufacturer Vitra share many of the same licenses for midcentury modern masterpieces, the former sold in North America and the later in Europe. Much debate surrounds whether one produces better products than the other. The rivalry between the two companies notwithstanding, Herman Miller pieces have been extensively exhibited and acquisitioned into the permanent collections of institutions such as New York’s Museum of Modern Art, London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, and even Weil am Rhein’s Vitra Design Museum—and many, many more.

* All images courtesy of Herman Miller.