DESIGNER OF THE "WOMB" CHAIR AND PROLIFIC ARCHITECT

Early Life.

Son of well-known Finnish architect and educator Eliel Saarinen, Eero Saarinen moved to the United States with his family in 1923. It was at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, headed by the elder Saarinen, that Eero blossomed.

Organic Design.

After winning first prize with Charles Eames in the 1940-1941 Museum of Modern Art's Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition, Saarinen began working on an "organic" chair design. He believed that a chair was incomplete without a person sitting in it, and he was determined to design a truly organic chair in which all parts blended in a unity of design. The result was the Womb chair, so called because its comfortable construction encouraged the sitter to assume a fetal position. The construction was of a molded plastic shell and fabric-covered latex foam upholstery on a...