A few years ago, after I had just met my boyfriend, we found ourselves driving in circles around a Colorado carpark. He claims the carpark was confusingly oriented, that its architecture seemed to indicate that we would go either up or down if we kept going. I contend, still, that we were in the middle of such a good conversation that he didn鈥檛 want to interrupt it by parking, by getting snagged on a new train of thought, and so that鈥檚 why, for twenty or thirty or even forty minutes, he circled slowly as we talked. What we were talking about was the partnership between writer (and strategist, as I argue) Aline Louchheim Saarinen and her husband, employer, and essential creative collaborator, the midcentury Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen. What we were actually talking about was whether we could collaborate in the way that Aline and Eero had.
Briefly: Saarinen designed the TWA Terminal at JFK Airport that looks like a soaring bird (an analogy Louchheim was instrumental in pushing), the 鈥淵ale Whale鈥� skating rink with its ridged curve of a roof, and the St. Louis Arch. He was influenced by his father, Eliel Saarinen, and was part of a whole Cranbrook crowd. His offices were in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, until the firm was supposed to move to New Haven, but he died suddenly at fifty-one in 1961 before he had the chance to come east. Briefly: Louchheim was a product of Vassar, an art critic at the New York Times, a socially gifted connector who encountered Saarinen because of a story she wrote about him in 1953 for the New York Times (which she scandalously allowed him to edit before it ran). She was influenced by the people she surrounded herself with鈥攖he magazine editor Douglas Haskell, the first full-time architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable (who suggested that Louchheim was surely more popular given that 鈥済entlemen prefer blondes鈥�), and the playwright Clifford Odets. While reporting her profile, she fell in love with Saarinen and left her life in New York in order to sit across from him in his Bloomfield Hills office, where she chewed on pencils and made him famous.
We were talking about Aline and Eero because we were really trying to talk about ourselves, and nothing lessens the potential strain on a new relationship like comparing it to someone else鈥檚. We had begun to realize that we might be compatible coworkers, this boyfriend and I. He is an industrial and furniture designer, skilled beyond belief, who鈥檇 made a name for himself with work that is at once historically influenced and profoundly contemporary, with pieces that spark a moment of delight, of curiosity, of disorientation and reorientation. He was doing handmade work when everyone else was doing mass produced; mass production when everyone else was doing handmade. He鈥檇 gone to RISD and worked with all the major designers, none of whom I can name, but all of whom you鈥檝e heard of. Meanwhile, I was working in public relations, focusing on getting architects published, my tactics and strategy guided in part by how Aline had done it for Eero. I hadn鈥檛 been involved with any of my clients, though. So we鈥檇 have to figure that part out.
鈥淲hat if we worked together,鈥� one of us floated. 鈥淛ust like Aline worked with Eero.鈥� We wanted to, but I was nervous. I鈥檇 seen how their interactions had changed from their earliest letters, in which Eero told Aline his drives, his goals鈥攍ike becoming Dean at Yale鈥攁nd in which Aline encouraged, molded, shaped his approaches, to their latest office memoranda, passed back and forth through the office. One memorable letter had scrawled, in Eero鈥檚 blocky text, 鈥淪hould you not answer this yourself?鈥� Aline鈥檚 response was that she did not have a crystal ball. I could see the difference just a few years鈥攂etween courtship and marriage and co-working鈥攃ould make, and I didn鈥檛 want that for myself. And yet, I saw so many possibilities if we could just find a way to join forces.
Are you curious about my designer boyfriend? Are you wondering who he is, and if you have one of his pieces? If so, that鈥檚 the point. I want you to be curious. I want you to think about him, to wonder if maybe you too want to feel a moment of delight, of curiosity. I do PR for a living after all, and I learned from the best鈥攆rom hundreds of office letters and documents that Aline sent to editors, pitching Eero as an architect, as a profile subject. Aline was both subtle and overt in her boosting of Eero; she mentioned him to her powerful and commissioning friends, name dropping whenever she could. And she played a role as eager information provider, as helpful wife. In the 1950s, I believe, she needed that cover in order to professionalize her role, because the role鈥攁rchitectural publicist鈥攈adn鈥檛 yet been professionalized. She wove together the personal and the professional in a way that so many of us continue to do today. It was a gift and a sacrifice.
My boyfriend wanted to know where the sacrifices had been, where things had gone sideways. I remembered a letter Aline had written to someone, towards the end of Eero鈥檚 life, though of course they didn鈥檛 know that yet. She wanted to, she wrote, 鈥渃onfine鈥� (an odd word for an expansive choice, but one that, I believe, spoke to the strength of her desires) her work to interests outside of the office, she said, turning down an invitation to write a book about him. (After he died, she wrote it anyway.) It seemed that she missed her career as an art critic and regretted, perhaps, having gone so far into Eero-world. 鈥淭hat was the trick, then,鈥� I said. That I could always, if I needed to, confine my work to interests outside of my boyfriend鈥檚 studio, his business. And so we agreed. We would try it out. And we would see how it went.
Maybe it鈥檚 odd to be guided by history more than someone living. But what I learned, over ten years of researching Aline, is just how messy, personal, impromptu, and creative the ways people organized themselves were鈥攁nd remain. It鈥檚 tempting, as a historian, to neaten the motives of others while allowing tremendous flexibility for ourselves. But her motives weren鈥檛 neat; mine aren鈥檛 neat. I want to sell books, and I want to sell you a Paul Loebach for Roll & Hill Halo chandelier. Contact me for pricing.
Eva Hagberg teaches in the Language and Thinking Program at Bard College and at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University. Her books include How to Be Loved: A Memoir of Lifesaving Friendship and Nature Framed: At Home in the Landscape. She lives in Brooklyn.