30 Apr 2008

ASSA ABLOY Sponsors Landmark Exhibition

ASSA ABLOY is proud to announce its global sponsorship of Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future, the first-ever retrospective of the life and works of one of the 20th century’s more influential architects.

Saarinen, one of the more celebrated designers of the modern era, is best known for his post-war masterpieces including the 630-foot tall stainless steel St. Louis Gateway Arch, the TWA terminal at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport, numerous university campus plans and buildings and the General Motors Technical Center near Detroit.

The exhibition began its US tour this year in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in November following a European tour that began October 2006 in Helsinki, Finland. After opening to architectural acclaim in Helsinki, the tour moved to Oslo, Norway and Brussels, Belgium. Confirmed US tour stops include: The Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; The National Building Museum in Washington, DC; Minneapolis Institute of Arts and Walker Art Center at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. The tour concludes at the Yale School of Architecture in New Haven, Connecticut in 2010. Additional tour information may be found at www.eerosaarinen.net.

About Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future
The exhibition is organized by the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, the Museum of Finnish Architecture, Helsinki and the National Building Museum, Washington, D.C., with the support of the Yale University School of Architecture.  The exhibition is accompanied by a book of the same title, published by Yale University Press and edited by Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen and Donald Albrecht. The patron of the exhibition is Her Excellency Tarja Halonen, President of the Republic of Finland.