by: Murrye Bernard Assoc. AIA LEED AP
Event: The Legacy of Saarinen’s Office
Location: Museum of the City of New York, 11.19.09
Speakers: Kevin Roche, FAIA — Former Saarinen Colleague & Co-founder, Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates; Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen — Associate Professor, Yale School of Architecture; Donald Albrecht — Curator & Co-editor of the exhibition catalog Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future
Organizer: Museum of the City of New York
TWA Terminal, New York International (now John F. Kennedy International) Airport, New York, circa 1962.
Photographer Balthazar Korab. (c) Balthazar Korab Ltd.
Kevin Roche, FAIA has had two architecture careers: the first as Eero Saarinen’s right-hand-man, and the second as a Pritzker Prize-winning architect and co-founder of Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates. In conjunction with the exhibition “Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future” at the Museum of the City of New York through 01.31.10, Roche discussed his career, including candid memories of Saarinen and how, in the process of carrying out his legacy, Roche designed many of his own renowned projects.
Soon after he emigrated to the U.S. from Dublin, Roche worked for the United Nations Planning Office, first as a clerk, then as a draftsman assigned to a stone wall design. In 1950, he joined Saarinen’s office in Bloomfield Hills, MI, and participated in the design of the GM Technical Center. Roche quickly became Saarinen’s principal design associate. “Everything I learned about architecture, I learned from him,” Roche said of his mentor.
With no lack of passion for his work, Saarinen was at the office at least 12 hours a day, and often late into the evening. According to Roche, he even worked on New Year’s Day. Left-handed Saarinen enjoyed writing his notes backwards while on airplanes. His secretary later placed the notes in front of a mirror to transcribe them. Saarinen felt it was also very important to explore designs with physical models. “Everyone worked on them,” Roche said.
In the midst of moving his office to Connecticut in 1961, Saarinen died suddenly at the age of 51. Roche received the phone call in the middle of a meeting with CBS in NYC, early in the design process of their new building. He finished the meeting because he believed that’s what Saarinen would have done. “The great tragedy of this life is that he never saw his great works finished,” Roche said, including the St. Louis Gateway Arch, TWA Flight Center, and the Oakland Museum.
Roche, along with another Saarinen associate, John Dinkeloo, continued to work on these projects and landed many notable projects on their own, including the Ford Foundation Building. Years ahead of PowerPoint, Roche created his own slides by painting on Mylar and then photographing the renderings. The resulting design, which features a 12-story glass-roofed garden, establishes a public space and fosters a sense of community within an otherwise compartmentalized office building.
Though Dinkaloo passed away in 1981, Roche has continued to operate the firm. His designs share the theme of vibrant public space, including the master plan, expansion, and renovations to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Central Park Zoo, and the United Nations Plaza Office & Apartment/Hotel and UNICEF Headquarters, proving he has come a long way from that stone wall. While Saarinen shaped the future of architecture, Roche has made his mark on NYC.
Murrye Bernard , LEED AP, is a freelance architectural writer and a contributing editor to e-Oculus.