Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen designed the Gateway Arch monument, completed in St. Louis in 1965 (it opened to the public in 1967). The world's largest arch, the iconic, 632-foot tall structure was built as a monument to westward expansion in the United States. Here, he's shown alongside models of the arch. Credit: Yale University Library, Manuscripts and Archives; © St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Eero Saarinen The junior Saarinen’s debut as a furniture designer—at age 20—came with a commission for most of the furnishings at Cranbrook’s Kingswood Middle School for Girls in Michigan. (His father, Eliel, designed the campus.) His 1930 auditorium armchair, made of tubular chromed steel and wood with light-green woven upholstery, has a cantilevered seat, like Mies van der Rohe’s Brno chair from the same year.

The office space doubles as a play area, so the parents can keep an eye on the kids while they work. The Saarinen Plastic Back side chair from Knoll was a gift from a friend.

The Tulip Chair consists of a reinforced plastic and aluminum stem with a curved fiberglass shell.

eero combines a router and range extender in a single compact package.

“The challenge is condensing technology into a compact package. If it gives consumers pause to meditate on the form every now and then, that’s good too.”—Fred Bould, designer

The device blankets the home in wi-fi using complex proprietary software. One per 1,000 square feet is recommended ($199 each or three for $499).

Though Saarinen completed the design in 1956, the patent drawing for the Tulip Chair was filed on June 7, 1960.

Part of the Pedestal collection introduced by Eero Saarinen as an answer to "the ugly, confusing, unrestful world" that lay beneath the surfaces of chairs and tables, this 42" round dining table comes in both Arabescato marble (shiny or matte finish), and a white laminate.

An early ad for the Pedestal Collection highlights its curvilinear form.

Saarinen at work on the Pedestal model. He started with hundreds of drawings, and moved on to ¼ scale models, which were then set up in a room the size of a dollhouse.

A familiar scene in the Benoit home: Peter paints at the Steelcase desk—"I do all my work here," he says—while Ando sits nearby, waiting for attention.

All of the interior furnishings were designed and built by LEAPfactory for this specific project. These pieces, including the reception desk, are made of laminated boards and the same reforested beech wood used in the school’s structure. A door behind the reception desk leads to a living room for the ski and snowboard instructors.

Saarinen designed his famous Tulip armchair as part of the Pedestal collection for Knoll in 1956 (manufacturing began the following year). With its minimal base and narrow, simple stem, the clean-lined design aimed to provide a solution to clunkier designs of, in the designer's own words, "ugly, confusing, unrestful world."

The arrival of the Pedestal collection was celebrated in this 1958 Knoll press release.

Calder Smith uses his elliptical table, designed in 1956 by Eero Saarinen for Knoll, as a place for both dining and working. “It’s not as heavy as you might think, so it’s easy to move around,” says the architect. “Plus the base allows room for lots of legs—we’ve had up to eight people sitting around it at one time.”

An Eero Saarinen Womb chair sits in the master bedroom, which also has a small office space.

The Airstream's meeting area is marked by an Eero Saarinen-designed Tulip table.

Blauvelt and Winter ground their soaring two-story living room with classics such as Eero Saarinen’s Womb chair and ottoman, a Noguchi coffee table, an Eames wire-base table and a Danish teak credenza, which displays their collection of pottery and a pair of Martz lamps made by Marshall Studios. Flor carpet tiles help add color to the neutral palette.

This writing desk was built by Albers in 1927 for the Moellenhoff family. The desk, along with Albers’s famous nesting tables, was preserved and brought to the United States before World War II. Nearly an exact copy of the original, the desk is made of solid oak with a yellow lacquered glass top, black lacquered drawer fronts, brass hardware, and an oak side panel that can be raised to create a larger work space.

A black electric guitar, a vintage rosewood desk, and a side chair by Charles and Ray Eames sit at the foot of the stairs just beneath a photo of designer Barbara Hill herself competing in the 1956 Miss America Pageant.

In the family room, cabinets open up to create an office desk. The steps on the left lead up to a mezzanine space that serves as play space for the children and a sleeping area for guests.

Blogger and stylist Annaleena Leino Karlsson has designed her 1950s farmhouse to have a mostly white interior. Her workspace is next to a rustic brick and stucco fireplace, which is adorned with cacti and decorative objects.

Visiting a Manhattan apartment designed by Tim Seggerman is like sitting inside one of Nakashima’s cabinets, a metaphor realized most fully in an ingenious "library"—really a glorified cubby with a banded maple ceiling, conjured from a free space adjacent to the loft bed.

Franson Wreland also designed the court-yard and a pair of 160-square-foot outbuildings—one is used as guest quarters and the other as storage space. While residents Julia and Fatima Olivero-Reinius chat outdoors, Chippie the dog approaches an Asplund desk and a chair by LucidiPevere.

A 2009 Cedric desk by Kay + Stemmer occupies the study.

Industrial designer Fred Bould pored over every detail so the product would coalesce with modern interiors.

The Carlisle Desk was originally designed for the Reverend Christopher Carlisle, an avid writer and modernist. Inspired by the minister, Poritz designed a subtle, functional desk that showcased the richness of the tropical Nicaraguan hard wood. The front of the desk includes three drawers that angle inward. Instead of typical metal sliders, the desk drawers employ wood slats that are hand-waxed to open and close smoothly.

The Alizé Sunlounger XS from Fermob combines a traditional design with functional advances. The fabric of the lounger is an outdoor technical fabric, making it extremely durable and resistant to weather damage. The canvas is also comfortable to the touch, so the Alizé can be used without a cushion or covering. The gently curved frame and bed add a sense of lightness to the Alizé, making this design from Fermob a refreshing option for outdoor spaces.

The home abuts a river, where the residents enjoy kayaking and swimming in warmer months. This geographic blessing partially inspired the wave-like backsplash. Each tile was hand-cut and individually placed by artisans from New Ravenna.

The living room is furnished with pieces by some of the greatest names in vintage design, such as Hans Wegner, Eero Saarinen and Charlotte Perriand, and also more recent pieces from the 1900s by Philippe Starck, among others.

Each of the sliding trays in Pozner’s tidy office desk serves a different function.

Pastilli Chair by Eero Aarnio.

Oak slats in the living room echo the timber slats that enclose the entry courtyard. The black-marble Empire side tables are by local furniture brand Seer Studio, and the white-marble Tulip table is by Eero Saarinen for Knoll.

Borowski took what he archly calls the “Karl Rove approach” to the redesign: “Find the weaknesses and turn them into strengths.” A case in point: Pozner’s ubiquitous piles of paperwork. “These led us to design multiple sliding desktops,” fabricated by Paul Chung of New York Construction Associates and Supreme General Construction, with multiple sliding trays he could spread his papers out on.