Master of sculptural architecture, designer of the Gateway Arch
A Finnish-American architect famed for intensely sculptural, expressive architectural forms. Unrestrained by modernism’s square boxes, he dared to shape bold, flowing curved forms with the newest concrete and structural technology of his day. His TWA Flight Center at New York’s Kennedy Airport, like a great bird about to take wing, froze the feeling of "flight" directly into building; his Gateway Arch for St Louis is a supremely elegant stainless-steel parabola 192 metres high, a monument to America’s "westward spirit." He was also a fine furniture designer (the famous "Tulip Chair" is his). He died young, yet in his short time injected movement and passion into modern architecture.
The Gateway Arch Saarinen designed for St Louis is a slender, supremely elegant stainless-steel curve 192 metres high, sweeping across the sky by the Mississippi. It has no rooms, no function — it is purely a monument, to the dream of Americans who once crossed this place to open the West. A curve simple to the extreme, yet carrying the collective memory and pride of a nation.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.