AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Architect saarinen first name11/25/2023 Critics tended to agree that he was more a building stylist.Īrchitectural histories usually focus on how architecture represents the grand narratives of social, cultural, political and economic forces, overlooking the specific everyday forces that contribute to a building’s realisation. After all, Eero was not as good an architect as he thought he was or thought he needed to be to enter the architectural pantheon. The author, Eva Hagberg, claims she wanted to ‘pull back the curtain’ for ‘everyone to see that sometimes people became famous because someone handled them really well, that there was no real relationship between merit and fame’. It’s also about fame, ambition, insecurity, love and lust (it would make a terrific movie). It is a fascinating behind-the-scenes exposé of the relationship between architectural practice and the media which exploded after the war and continues to form the basis of how architecture works today. When Eero Met His Match is the story of Aline and Eero’s personal and professional relationship and the rise of architectural publicity. Aline and Eero were married the following year and Aline became head of information services at Saarinen & Associates, ‘the first architectural publicist’. Saarinen also had two children with the sculptor Lily Swann but was trying to end this marriage as it no longer suited his ambitions. Louchheim was divorced with two children and engaged to Edgar Kaufmann Jr. So far, so normal.įast forward to 1953 and Aline (then) Louchheim, a well-respected art critic for the New York Times, wrote The Case History of a Romance to architect Eero Saarinen, a racy birthday card in which she explicitly documented their brief romantic liaisons. This unremarkable document shows how she seemed to find her self-worth through what boys thought of her, but also how she was working out her thoughts and feelings through practising prose and poetry. Like many teenage girls over the years, Aline was privately documenting her crushes and the letters she wrote to and received from her beaux du jour. On 13 April 1928, 14-year-old Aline Bernstein wrote in her diary, ‘Before you begin something – think of its beginning, its middle, its end, and its consequences, then if you are willing, do it’. The press has a significant role to play in this construction, a role that remains undiscussed and unstudied. I’ve since learned about how this discourse is constructed and how it constructs architecture – things that aren’t taught in school and are misunderstood in practice. When I saw my name in print above my first article, I was embarrassed that I was working out what I thought in public, but excited to think I was contributing to ‘the discourse’. I started writing about architecture 15 years ago to help fund my PhD research into architectural magazines.
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |