The Noble Architect Foundation®

He was the son of Eliel Saarinen, with whose family he emigrated to the United States of America when he was thirteen years old, in 1923. He grew up within the community of the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, the buildings which his father had designed and where his father also taught. Eero studied under his father as well as on courses in sculpture and furniture design. Eero had a close relationship with fellow students Charles and Ray Eames, and became good friends with Florence (Schust) Knoll. He then went on to study architecture at Yale University, completing his studies in 1934. After that he toured Europe and north Africa for a year and spent another year back in Finland, after which he returned to Cranbrook to work for his father as well as teach at Cranbrook. He became a naturalized citizen of the USA in 1940. On his father's death in 1950 Saarinen founded his own architect's office Eero Saarinen and Associates. He had two children from his first marriage; Eric Saarinen and Susan Saarinen. Eric Saarinen is now a commercial/movie director and co-founder of a production company in Santa Monica, California. Susan Saarinen is the founder and lead architect for a landscape design firm in Golden, Colorado.

In 1954, after having divorced his first wife, Saarinen married Aline Bernstein, an art critic at The New York Times, who then worked vociferously on her husband's public relations. They had a son, Eames, named after his collaborator Charles Eames. (Aline Saarinen was later head of the Paris news bureau of NBC-TV.)