Finnish-American architect and industrial designer Eero Saarinen’s iconic buildings, from the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, to the Miller House in Columbus, Indiana, helped symbolize America’s buoyant post-Cold War period, and often looked as streamlined and glamorous as the jets taxiing in front of one of his greatest creations, the Dulles International Airport.

“Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies, and Corbu have given us the ABCs…it is up to us to develop a complete language of modern architecture. We have a long and terribly challenging and marvelous job ahead of us.”—Eero Saarinen

Saarinen’s work stands taller when his relatively short career is taken into account. The influential modernist, born on August 2o, 1910 (37 years to the day after his father), died in 1961 at age 51 without seeing many of his major works completed. He developed a reputation for showmanship while creating a succession of glittering headquarters for industrial giants such as John Deere and IBM, airport terminals and university buildings. While critics at the time criticized his flexibility and lack of a definitive style, recent reappraisals have bolstered his reputation as a 20th-century icon, a tireless worker who would adapt every project to its own specific needs and environment.