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46-424: In his report on the year 1955-56, Yale President A. Whitney Griswold announced his intention to add at least one more residential college to the system Yale had launched only two decades earlier. "We have the colleges so full that community life, discipline, education, even sanitation are suffering," he stated. This news bred wild rumors about four or five new colleges being added to Yale's system. Nothing substantial

92-533: A big-screen TV. A quieter atmosphere is found in Ericka's Room , a space filled with comfy couches, a TV, and board games. Ericka's Room memorializes Ericka Bishop, '97, who was killed by a drunk driver just prior to the start of her junior year in Morse. Morse has an adjacent "twin" residential college named " Ezra Stiles " which is architecturally similar and was built at the same time. The two distinct colleges share

138-504: A combined dining hall, over which runs a public walkway to the Payne Whitney Gymnasium . Architecturally, Morse and Stiles differ from their predecessors by having more private space per student, and the lowest ratio of natural light aperture to wall surface of any other colleges. Morse and Stiles have unique architecture that sets them apart from the other colleges and sometimes against each other. The Morse-Stiles rivalry

184-468: A digital media room, exercise facilities, and spaces for dance and aerobics. The space joins Morse with neighboring Ezra Stiles College via an underground courtyard spanned by a pedestrian bridge. The former 11,699 square feet of shared social space in Morse and Stiles swelled to 15,300 after the renovations. Pierson and Davenport, by comparison, together have 14,638. Other completed work at Morse includes an upgrade of all mechanical and electrical facilities,

230-707: A master plan for the campus. Saarinen's plan A Foundation for Learning: Planning the Campus of Brandeis University (1949; second edition 1951), developed with Matthew Nowicki , called for a central academic complex surrounded by residential quadrangles along a peripheral road. The plan was never built but was useful in attracting donors. Saarinen did build a few residential structures on the campus, including Ridgewood Quadrangle (1950), Sherman Student Center (1952) and Shapiro Dormitory at Hamilton Quadrangle (1952). These have all been either demolished or extensively remodeled. One of his best known thin-shell concrete structures

276-415: A modern attempt to capture the spirit of Gothic architecture, Saarinen eliminated all right angles from the living areas. (Scully called the design an "anti-Masonic satire in brick and mortar." There are, of course, right angles in every window, between the floors and the walls, and the walls and the ceilings.) This resulted, notoriously, in two rooms which had eleven walls, none of which was long enough to put

322-486: A new roof, new windows, updates to meet fire-safety and handicapped-accessibility codes, and air conditioning for public spaces and the Head of College's suite. Student rooms, common rooms, the gallery, game room, and the buttery have also been upgraded to accommodate the goal of Yale's residential college system as a center for social interaction. There has also been a major reconfiguration of the kitchen and servery that expands

368-494: A unique walk-through suite system that allows residents access to all floors and stairwells of the building. In the 1980s, Morse freshmen lived in Vanderbilt Hall. Eero Saarinen Eero Saarinen ( / ˈ eɪ r oʊ ˈ s ɑːr ɪ n ə n , ˈ ɛər oʊ -/ , Finnish: [ˈeːro ˈsɑːrinen] ; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer who created

414-726: A wide array of innovative designs for buildings and monuments, including the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan ; the passenger terminal at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C. ; the TWA Flight Center (now TWA Hotel ) at John F. Kennedy International Airport ; and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis . He was the son of Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen . Eero Saarinen

460-399: Is decades old. Morse College was entirely renovated during 2009-2010. The top-to-bottom refurbishment updated the facilities of the college to meet growing student needs while preserving the design and style Morse is known for. The centerpiece of the renovation project is its new underground recreational spaces, including a theater, music practice rooms, a weaving studio, a recording studio,

506-469: Is partly because Roche-Dinkeloo , the successor to Saarinen's firm, donated its Saarinen archives to Yale University, but also because Saarinen's oeuvre can be said to fit in with present-day concerns about pluralism of styles. He was criticized in his own time—most vociferously by Yale's Vincent Scully —for having no identifiable style; one explanation for this is that Saarinen's vision was adapted to each individual client and project, which were never exactly

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552-641: Is the Crow Island School in Winnetka, Illinois (1940). The first major work by Saarinen, in collaboration with his father, was the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan , which follows the rationalist design Miesian style , incorporating steel and glass but with the addition of accent of panels in two shades of blue. The GM Technical Center was constructed in 1956, with Saarinen using models, which allowed him to share his ideas with others and gather input from other professionals. With

598-503: Is the Kresge Auditorium at MIT . Another thin-shell structure is Ingalls Rink at Yale University , which has suspension cables connected to a single concrete backbone and is nicknamed "the whale". His most famous work is the TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport , which represents the culmination of his previous designs and his genius for expressing the ultimate purpose of each building, what he called

644-730: The Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris , France, in September 1929. He then went on to study at the Yale School of Architecture , completing his studies in 1934. He subsequently toured Europe and North Africa for two years and then returned to the United States in 1936 to work in his father's architectural practice. After his tour of Europe and North Africa, Saarinen returned to Cranbrook to work for his father and teach at

690-669: The Gateway Arch National Park (then known as the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial) in St. Louis . The memorial was not completed until the 1960s. The competition award was mistakenly addressed to his father because both he and his father had entered the competition separately. During his long association with Knoll he designed many important pieces of furniture, including the Grasshopper lounge chair and ottoman (1946),

736-780: The Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Saarinen was assigned to draw illustrations for bomb disassembly manuals and to provide designs for the Situation Room in the White House. Saarinen worked full-time for the OSS until 1944. Eero Saarinen was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1952. He was elected a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1954. In 1962, he

782-479: The TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport , which he worked on with Charles J. Parise; the main terminal of Washington Dulles International Airport ; and the new East Air Terminal of the old Athens airport in Greece, which opened in 1967. Many of these projects use catenary curves in their structural designs. In 1949 and 1950, Saarinen was hired by the then-new Brandeis University to create

828-598: The University of Chicago Law School building and grounds. Saarinen served on the jury for the Sydney Opera House commission in 1957 and was crucial in the selection of the now internationally known design by Jørn Utzon . A jury which did not include Saarinen had discarded Utzon's design in the first round; Saarinen reviewed the discarded designs, recognized a quality in Utzon's design, and ultimately assured

874-801: The "style for the job". In 2019, the terminal was transformed into the TWA Hotel and features furniture designed by Saarinen. Saarinen designed the Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo, New York , together with his father, Eliel Saarinen. He also designed the Embassy of the United States in London , which opened in 1960, and the former Embassy of the United States in Oslo . Saarinen worked with his father, mother, and sister designing elements of

920-583: The 1950s, he began to receive more commissions from American universities for campus designs and individual buildings. These include Birch Hall at Antioch College , the Noyes dormitory at Vassar and Hill College House at the University of Pennsylvania as well as the Ingalls ice rink, Ezra Stiles & Morse Colleges at Yale University , the MIT Chapel and neighboring Kresge Auditorium at MIT and

966-745: The Cranbrook campus in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan , including the Cranbrook School, Kingswood School, the Cranbrook Art Academy, and the Cranbrook Science Institute. Eero Saarinen's leaded-glass designs are a prominent feature of these buildings throughout the campus. Saarinen was recruited by Donal McLaughlin , an architectural school friend from his Yale days, to join the military service in

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1012-777: The First Honor award of the American Institute of Architects twice, in 1955 and 1956, and their gold medal in 1962. In 1965 he took first prize in US Embassy competition in London. Saarinen became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1940. In 1939, Saarinen married the sculptor Lilian Swann . They had two children, Eric and Susan Saarinen. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1954. That same year, Saarinen married Aline Bernstein Louchheim , an art critic at The New York Times . Saarinen met Louchheim when she came to Detroit to interview him for his contributions to

1058-916: The Future , was organized by the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York in collaboration with Yale School of Architecture , the National Building Museum , and the Museum of Finnish Architecture . The exhibition toured in Europe and the United States from 2006 to 2010, including a stint at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. The exhibition was accompanied by the book Eero Saarinen: Shaping

1104-540: The Future . In 2016, Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future , a film about Saarinen co-produced by his son Eric Saarinen , premiered on the American Masters series on PBS . Durfee Hall Durfee Hall is a freshman residential dormitory on the Old Campus of Yale University . Built in 1871, it is the second oldest residential building at Yale, only after Farnam Hall . Currently,

1150-582: The Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition in 1940. The Tulip chair , like all other Saarinen chairs, was taken into production by the Knoll furniture company, founded by Hans Knoll , who married Saarinen family friend Florence (Schust) Knoll . Further attention came also while Saarinen was still working for his father when he took first prize in the 1948 competition for the design of

1196-546: The United States." Durfee Hall is composed of communal suites designed to house between six and nine students each. Each suite contains a central common room from which bedrooms, hallways, and private bathrooms branch off. 80% of the rooms in Durfee are singles—the highest percentage of singles in any freshman housing. The suites are positioned around five stairwells open to the Old Campus yard, three of which have access to

1242-503: The Womb chair and ottoman (1948), the Womb settee (1950), side and arm chairs (1948–1950), and his most famous Tulip or Pedestal group (1956), which featured side and arm chairs, dining, coffee and side tables, as well as a stool. All of these designs were highly successful except for the Grasshopper lounge chair, which, although in production through 1965, was not a big success. One of Saarinen's earliest works to receive international acclaim

1288-459: The academy. His father's firm, Saarinen, Swanson and Associates, was headed by Eliel Saarinen and Robert Swanson from the late 1930s until Eliel's death in 1950 and headquartered in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan until 1961 when the practice was moved to Hamden, Connecticut . While still working for his father, Saarinen first gained recognition for his design capabilities for a chair he designed together with Charles Eames, which received first place in

1334-470: The age of 51 while undergoing an operation in Ann Arbor, Michigan for a brain tumor . He was overseeing the completion of a new music building for the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance . By the 21st century, Saarinen was considered one of the masters of American 20th-century architecture. During that time, his work was the subject of a major exhibition and several books. This

1380-706: The bed against and still be able to open the door. In a 1959 article in the Yale Daily News , Eero Saarinen discussed his design for Morse, noting "[o]ur primary effort was to create an architecture which would recognize the individual as individual instead of an anonymous integer in a group." However, right angles have been reintroduced into the architecture of Morse College after renovation in 2010. The college provides several amenities to its resident "Morsels." The fourteen-story main tower provides an inspiring view of all of New Haven. The college's common areas include air hockey , pool , ping-pong , foosball , and

1426-487: The building all have twelve-foot ceilings and wood-paneled walls. All common rooms have two windows facing Old Campus and a fireplace, as do the oversized doubles. The majority of the building's singles face Elm Street and Cross Campus, and almost all of them have walk-in closets. The fifth floor of the building, which is lit primarily by skylight, has four connected suites with expansive common rooms. Like most freshman housing on Old Campus, there are no overhead lights inside

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1472-406: The building is used to house first-year students of Morse College , who stay there for the duration of their freshman year before moving into Morse College proper. Durfee Hall was completed in 1871 under the direction of Russell Sturgis , Jr. (M.A., Honorary, Yale University, 1872) and received its name from the generous Yale benefactor Bradford M. C. Durfee, Esq., of Fall River, Massachusetts. It

1518-806: The bulk of these primary source documents on the couple were digitized and posted online on the Archives' website. The Eero Saarinen collection at the Canadian Centre for Architecture documents eight built projects, including the old Athens airport in Greece, the former US Embassy Chanceries in Oslo, Norway and London, England , corporate projects for John Deere, CBS, and IBM, and the North Christian Church in Columbus, Indiana. An exhibition of Saarinen's work, Eero Saarinen: Shaping

1564-431: The capacity of the dining halls in both Morse and Stiles. Morse College freshmen are housed exclusively in the historic Durfee Hall , which, built in 1871, is among the oldest buildings on Yale's Old Campus. It is known for its unique housing quarters, 80% of which are singles—the highest percentage of any freshman housing. Durfee Hall has twelve-foot vaulted ceilings, hardwood floors, at least two fireplaces per suite, and

1610-727: The commission of Utzon. After his father's death in July 1950, Saarinen founded his own architect's office, Eero Saarinen and Associates. He was the principal partner from 1950 until his death. The firm carried out many of its most important works, including the Bell Labs Holmdel Complex in Holmdel Township, New Jersey ; the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri ; the Miller House in Columbus, Indiana ;

1656-470: The fifth floor. The suites are designed with a unique walk-through layout that allows residents to pass through unlocked suites from one end of the building to another without descending the stairwell. Most suites are also positioned between two of the stairwells, and have access to both. The exterior of Durfee is covered in a combination of sandstone and bluestone, and is accentuated with gables, ornate turrets, and large brick chimneys. Upon its completion, it

1702-452: The growing strain on the older colleges. Mellon's gift of $ 15 million led to the development of Morse and its adjacent college, Ezra Stiles College . Morse College is named after Samuel Morse . Morse College is an eclectic structure built on an odd, angular site with many design features that are reminiscent of Tuscan villages, most notably San Gimignano . The college's original construction consisted almost entirely of single rooms, and in

1748-488: The recently completed General Motors Technical Center . Saarinen and Louchheim had one son together, whom they named Eames after Saarinen's collaborator Charles Eames . In addition to their respective contributions to architecture, design, and criticism, Eero and Aline Saarinen are remembered for their affectionate and detailed personal papers, held at the Archives of American Art . Saarinen died on September 1, 1961, at

1794-509: The same. Scully also criticized him for designing buildings that were "packages," with "no connection with human use . . . at once cruelly inhuman and trivial, as if they had been designed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff." The papers of Aline and Eero Saarinen, from 1906 to 1977, were donated in 1973 to the Archives of American Art , Smithsonian Institution (by Charles Alan, Aline Saarinen 's brother and executor of her estate ). In 2006,

1840-456: The success of this project, Saarinen was then invited by other major American corporations such as John Deere , IBM / IBM Rochester , and CBS to design their new headquarters or other major corporate buildings. Despite the overall rational design philosophy, the interiors usually contained dramatic sweeping staircases as well as furniture designed by Saarinen, such as the Pedestal series. In

1886-757: The suites of Durfee Hall. Durfee is the location of the Durfee Sweet Shop, the principal school-owned late-night convenience and snack store. Next door is the Yale Women's Center, also located in the basement of Durfee. The fictional characters Rory Gilmore and Paris Geller , from the hit TV series Gilmore Girls , lived in Durfee Hall as freshmen. Scenes from the Fox TV series Fringe (aired October 14, 2008) that were purported to be of Harvard's campus are actually filmed at Yale; Durfee Hall

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1932-582: Was announced until the spring of 1959 when Eero Saarinen '34 was chosen as the architect, and the Old York Square behind the Graduate School became the designated site. New Haven high schools, Boardman Manual Training School and Hillhouse High School were demolished to make way for the colleges. The Old Dominion Foundation, established by Paul Mellon '29, provided money to build two "radically different" colleges, which would alleviate

1978-713: Was born in Hvitträsk on August 20, 1910, to Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen and his second wife, Louise, on his father's 37th birthday. They migrated to the United States in 1923, when Eero was thirteen. He grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan , where his father taught and was dean of the Cranbrook Academy of Art , and he took courses in sculpture and furniture design there. He had a close relationship with fellow students, designers Charles and Ray Eames , and became good friends with architect Florence Knoll (née Schust) . Saarinen began studies in sculpture at

2024-487: Was considered a "high point in Victorian Gothic Style architecture," and critics from American Architect and Building News commented that "It will be a long time before the quiet dignity of its roof and chimneys will be surpassed anywhere." More recently, the exterior was renovated by Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates Inc. The interior was also renovated in the summer of 2016. The first four floors of

2070-613: Was posthumously awarded a gold medal by the American Institute of Architects. In 1940, he received two first prizes together with Charles Eames in the furniture design competition of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. In 1948, he won the first prize in the Jefferson National Monument competition. The Boston Arts festival in 1953 gave him their Grand Architectural Award. He received

2116-418: Was the second of a set of three buildings Sturgis designed that include Farnam Hall and Battell Chapel , and was originally described simply as "large and costly." However, it was quickly recognized as the defining piece of architecture on Yale's campus, and by the late 19th century, it was referred to by The New York Times as "the centre of wealth at Yale" and as "one of the finest college dormitories in

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