The son and grandson of perhaps Columbus’ two most prominent Modernist architects politely stopped an informal chat Thursday afternoon at YES Cinema just before a showing of the documentary on his late father, “Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future.”
Eric Saarinen, the film co-producer and director of photography, quickly moved toward the middle of the theater and looked at a clip of the film — which also partly highlights his late grandfather, Eliel Saarinen — because he wanted to make sure the video fit the screen properly.
“Perfect,” he said.
The 68-minute movie, directed by Peter Rosen and shown in an edited version last year on PBS, and Eric Saarinen’s remarks and remembrances highlighted a vulnerable, human and altogether imperfect journey. It meandered from strongly resenting his father after leaving the family for another wife in 1954 to forgiving his dad and learning to love his father’s work he had not really understood until recently.
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“I’m getting a big kick out of pushing these guys,” Eric Saarinen said of the latest film and a coming one on his grandfather. “It’s like a big treasure hunt.”
It includes the Los Angeles-based filmmaker finding emotional pieces of himself that he had buried over the years — and finding wholeness and closure as he slowly realized what he calls his father’s genius.
Thursday marked the first local day of the four-day Exhibit Columbus event. The 2018 National Symposium: Design, Community and Progressive Preservation opened Wednesday at Newfields and the Indianapolis Museum of Art in Indianapolis. The proceedings highlighting a variety of art, architecture and design continues through Sunday at a range of local, noteworthy structures.
With his younger sister and landscape architect Susan Saarinen of Colorado in the audience, Eric Saarinen spoke straightforwardly about his father being an often-distant figure so much surrounded by notables that famed designer Frank Lloyd Wright sometimes bounced a then-toddler filmmaker on his knee.
Eric Saarinen told the audience of about 150 people that his grandfather and Wright would hilariously disagree on plenty.
“Frank Lloyd Wright once said the only thing Eliel taught him was how to write out an expense report,” Eric Saarinen said. “And Eliel said Frank was always frank, but he wasn’t always right.”
Eero Saarinen, who died in 1961 when the son was 19, is known locally for designing North Christian Church, The Miller House and Irwin Conference Center. On a national and international scale, he designed the TWA Terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and the American Embassy in London, among other notable structures.
His grandfather, Eliel Saarinen, who died in 1950, designed First Christian Church (which Eero Saarinen helped with), paving the way for other, architecturally Modernist buildings in Columbus.
“My father once said he felt like a scared little child when his own father was gone,” Eric Saarinen said. “To me, that didn’t quite make sense. I considered myself the scared little child with my strict father.”
Grandfather Eliel Saarinen, very much a people person, was an entirely different story.
“People called him Papa,” Eric Saarinen said. “He really was the warm-hearted grandfather.”
Those human elements amid the highly technical topic of architecture caught the attention of the heavily local audience members, who often chuckled at the speaker’s humor.
David Marchal, an architect in Louisville, Kentucky, said he enjoyed both the film and the personal nature of Eric Saarinen’s remarks.
“I’ve seen a lot of those images of those (Saarinen) buildings for years,” Marchal said. “And to get a whole new perspective on them was really cool, instead of somebody taking a picture to put in a book and adding something technical about them.
“It added a whole other layer to these things I’ve been seeing for years.”
