American architect and furniture designer. His family immigrated from Finland to the United States in 1923. He never attended college but worked in the Cranbrook Architecture Office during the summers of 1928 and 1929 and studied sculpture in Paris. He received a graduate degree from the School of Fine Arts at Yale University in 1934. Two years later, he entered into partnership with his father, Eliel. He was also employed as design architect by the Flint Institute of Research and Planning and as designer in Norman Bel Geddes Office while designs for the General Motors Futurama building for the 1939 World's Fair were in progress. Like Breuer, he worked on defense housing projects and was deeply interested in industrial production of building components. Saarinen collaborated with Charles Eames on moulded-plywood furniture designs, winning the 1941 Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition at the Museum of Modern Art. Many of his most famous buildings, including the General Motors Technical Center, the IBM manufacturing Plant, the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center and the Bell Telephone Laboratories, were designed for large industrial concerns. Other famous projects include the St. Louis Gateway Arch, the TWA Terminal Complex in New York, Washington Dulles International Airport and the Vivan Beaumont Repertory Theater at Lincoln Center. Saarinen and Breuer were friendly, with Saarinen even inquiring how he could acquire land near Breuer's summer cottage in Wellfleet, MA.