Eero

Saarinen has fallen in reputation; or at least he's not at all trendy. There's a review of a new biography in the current Metropolis. It was surprising to realize how many buildings I've been in: Morse, Stiles, Ingalls Rink, Noyes Hall, the TWA terminal, John Deere headquarters in Moline, and 51 West 52nd Street, as well as others, perhaps, that I haven't thought of. So I've come up with at least seven. The building at 51 West 52nd is said to have pioneered a structure where the building is supported on the core and the periphery, allowing for totally open-plan offices. Some people were definitely afraid to go near the windows. The supposedly easily movable and reconfigurable walls were seldom changed, because it wasn't that easy. So long as window people kept their doors open, there was no one without natural light, and the windows are so tall that the light reached everybody in very large bullpens that ran all the way to the window wall with no enclosed office blocking. Being a treehouse, and not a cave, person, someday I'd like to go up in that arch. I don't suppose that the library will coughing up for that book, but there's always inter-library loan from the Battle library.