TitleProject (Architectural Sketch)
Architect
Eliel Saarinen
(1873 - 1950)
Date1929
MediumGraphite with pen and ink border on cream wove paper
DimensionsSheet size: 24 1/2 × 60 1/2 in.
SignedSigned in graphite at lower right: "Eliel Saarinen 1929".
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, October 24, 1946
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number40-A
Label TextEliel Saarinen was brought up in Russia where his father was a Lutheran minister. He entered the Polytechnic Institute in Helsinki in both architecture and painting and before graduation from school, Saarinen was already in practice with two of his classmates. Following their success with designs for country estates and the commission for the Finnish Pavilion at the Paris Exposition of 1900, they built their own compound of studios, offices and housing in the picturesque countryside overlooking a lake outside Helsinki.Saarinen visited the United States in 1923 and settled in Evanston, Illinois. He began teaching at the University of Michigan and later designed the buildings for and served as director of the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This architectural sketch is in the tradition of Paul Scheerbart, Antonio Sant'Elia and others, who created visionary projects that were not necessarily intended to be realized. This project was submitted as Saarinen's diploma presentation and reflects the architect's organic approach to architecture.
