It is a reactionary tower built for reactionaries — a soaring Neolithic edifice easily recognizable by its crown. But instead of being the stunning and unique skyscraper its owners thought it would be, the Chicago Tribune Tower is seen as the ultimate mark of historicism. Ironically, its lasting architectural influence is about it is not– a cross-cutting combination of history and modernity proposed by the runner-up architect, Eliel Saarinen of Finland.
If you look at Saarinen’s drawings for the 1922 competition (which attracted 260 entries including proposals by Walter Gropius, Adolf Loos, Adolf Meyer and Bertram Goodhue), you’ll see plans for a building. Art Deco looks familiar, even though it was never built. That’s because after the committee went to the historic tower designed by John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood, people began to openly praise Saarinen’s proposal. Then they started building towers inspired by it.
The Tribune Tower is on the right compared to what Saarinen suggested, on the left.
Illustrated by The Daily Beast / WikiCommons
““The master building in Finland…foretells a time to come,” wrote the skyscraper’s creator, Louis Sullivan. “Not far away, when the wretched and the longing, the filthy and the ferocious, will be freed from the bondage and delusion of fixed ideas.” Architect and critic Thomas Talmadge called it “the best design since Amiens”. Browse the buildings built across American cities in the years following Saarinen’s offer to see his drawings come to life. The Telephone Building in San Francisco is a close replica, and close followers include the Bay Area Building in Houston and Albert Kahn’s Fisher Building in Detroit. Even the two winners of the contest found themselves bowing to the man they defeated. John Mead Howells’ New York New York Panhellenic House is extremely similar, and Raymond Hood’s New York buildings including the Radiator Company of America Building, the McGraw-Hill Building, and the Rockefeller Center feature a lot of Saarinen’s ideas. .
If quickly entering the world of 1920s architecture is a little daunting and you’re wondering what the hell Eliel Saarinen is, or perhaps why he sounds a bit familiar, he is. father of Eero Saarinen, designer of St. Louis Arch, Dulles Airport and TWA Terminal. (He actually lost to his son in a design competition for the Arch, and when it was announced to the office that E. Saarinen had won, all thought it was the father’s.) He was also one of the greatest architects working in the early 20th century, first in Finland as the master behind some of its most iconic buildings, and then was in America, where he planned and designed the campus of Cranbrook, a campus outside Detroit schools, museums and luxury research facilities that has seen the likes of Mitt Romney, Florence Knoll, Charles and Ray Eames come and go.
And it is on the grounds of Cranbrook that one can find the home that he and his wonderfully talented family designed.
Saarinen’s second-place finish in the Tribune Tower competition brought in multiple prizes — he also won $20,000, which allowed him to move his wife, Loja, and their two children to America. He went to the University of Michigan in 1923 and worked with publisher George Booth, a major patron of the Arts & Crafts movement, who at the time was developing Cranbrook. Saarinen was gradually included in Booth’s plans and eventually became the project’s lead designer while his wife became head of the school’s weaving program. Along the way, the architect designed and built his dream home.
Around the same time Saarinen designed his home, the world of architecture is beginning to enter the era of Art Deco architecture, which combines sleek industrial forms, geometric shapes and ornaments from ancient cultures such as the Mayans and Egypt. Saarinen’s house is a perfect time frame of that transitional period, between historic Arts & Crafts and evocative Art Deco. It is an interior that pulls from every thread of design history, in stark contrast to the anti-historical visions of architects like Corbusier, whose modernist aesthetic would dominate for decades. century.
Standing on Academy Street on a windy Michigan December morning, gazing at the home Saarinen designed for his family, the first thing one notices is this light Ohio brick look that’s little for you know what’s inside. It almost blends in with its historic neighbors — the whole street feels like it’s been cut off from an English village. The only outward hints of what might have been inside are the brick texture, lead-glass windows, and ceramic roof. Even when you first enter, the surprise is delayed, as Saarinen has placed a dark foyer and stairs that run along part of the façade for privacy. But after you slip on heels and slip through velvet dresses, you enter a world that perfectly blends architecture, design and art.
There are four main rooms on the first floor of the house tour, and each room after another will make you feel more and more cool enough to stay here. The reception hall (calling it a living room would be unfriendly and unsympathetic with its arrangement) is first and foremost a raisin-colored Pewabic brick fireplace that Eliel had designed. for an exhibition at the Met. Look around and take a close look at the works, all designed by the architect, from benches covered with ryijy (traditional Finnish rugs) to brass andirons faucets. Based on a book on the house, Eliel experienced a bit of a rooster obsession in the 1920s, when designing gates, furniture, and planks with the bird. Softness is key here, and so the walls are made of jute fabric and light from torchieres lamps.
Eliel is well known for playing with axes and focal points, arguing that when they’re a little off, you’ll be more aware of the designs. So the magnificent 19-foot rug along the floor designed by his wife, Loja, is off-center by 6 inches. He once declared: “Painting a picture is art, hanging it is architecture”, so also pay attention to the way some works of art are hung, for lack of a good word is better than imperfection.
Walk along the right side of the rug and face the street, and you’ll see an alcove containing the library, although from the alcove in this context seems flimsy and inadequate. It was a landscape that was maple-stained gray and filled with leather bound books. When Eliel talks about his approach to urban planning, he emphasizes that among the most important are “intimate vignette settings in the network of roads and open spaces.” It has no more vignette than this space screams for Hopper to get up from the grave and paint it.
The third room is the most iconic room of the house, and I wish Cranbrook would shut down the velvet porters so they could open the theater on tours to explore the dining room inside. If the reception hall is the ultimate Arts & Crafts, the dining room is pure Art Deco. It is octagonal with a concentric circular ceiling painted 23 karat reflected by a round table made of corrugated iron placed on an octagonal base. The walls are fir panels made of wood with four mercury-red recesses. The chair and table were designed by Eliel and manufactured by W&J Sloane. While the black border on the back of the chair looks like a mosaic, it’s actually been repainted, much to Eliel’s disappointment.
The final space on the first floor is the studio, a long white-domed room. Step into the “cozy corner” first, a seating area with an instant bench covered in green patterned ryijy fabric, starting with a lower-height ceiling and curving columns. This cellar and the lounge area in the middle of the vaulted room is where the Saarinens congregate, and where Eliel feels happier every day as she spends her “happiest hour of the day,” cocktail hour. At the end of the hallway was the office, which both Eliel and Loja used.
The tour culminates upstairs in the master bedroom (the other bedrooms are now housekeepers), which is decorated with furniture and decorations designed by their children ( both Eero and her sister Pipjan had successful furniture design careers). The most spectacular piece is probably the silver Art Deco mirror and lamp set that Eero designed for his mother’s dressing table.
But hidden through the mirrored door is one of the house’s most impressive spaces, the ensuite bathroom. White brick tiles cover the space in a grid reminiscent of one of the Tron create a sparkling space that feels contemporary even now. (A design note for those who like detail: the mirror is placed between two windows so a person’s face will be illuminated by natural light.)
Wandering from room to room, perusing art, textiles, design choices, and objects, it is clear that this is a family that understands the joy people have when encountering many beautiful things. The house was also a window into something often forgotten today — Detroit and Michigan as a whole were and still are global hubs of design and creativity. So next time you’re in the area, schedule a tour, because who knows, you may find that what your home is missing is a plush velvet portiere that you love. can suddenly turn around to reveal his living room.
