Finnish-American architect and designer Eero Saarinen was born in 1910.
Saarinen studied sculpture in Paris and then architecture at Yale in 1934 and on graduating he began designing furniture with Norman Bel Geddes and practicing architecture with his father, Eliel Saarinen.
He collaborated on several projects in furniture design with his friend Charles Eames and opened his own practice in Bloomfield Hills in 1950.
Saarinen's reputation as an architect was established with his design of the General Motors Technical Center, Warren, Michigan, which he worked on from 1951-55.
Among the many buildings for which he is known are the Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC, and the TWA Terminal at Kennedy International Airport in New York.
He created many collegiate buildings, including those at Concordia Senior College, Fort Wayne, Vassar and The University of Chicago.  He also designed the American embassies at Oslo and London.
Saarinen’s most famous commission is probably the Gateway Arch (designed 1948, completed 1964) at St. Louis.
Today his award-winning Tulip Chair (1956) and Saarinen Table (1956) are manufactured by Knoll. Saarinen died in 1961.