The Design undertaken by a team that included Eliel Saarinen and Robert Swanson as well as other Cranbrook people as Charles Eames, was essentially dominated by Eero. He pursured a fairly pure modernist strategy, rationally exploring each element within the program and resolving functional relationships, rather than following a predetermined formal image. The functional areas in the project were closely arranged but clearly seperatly articulated, and certain components were left open to future expansion, in a refinement of principles first evidenced in earlier projects. The long horizontal expanses of glass; the precise thin-walled volumes; and the open, flexible spaces organized along a consistent module - all suggested affinites with the International Style. However, the balanced volumetric composition, the applied decoration, and the inclusion of a reflecting pool work in a way characteristic of the Saarinen collaboration, modifying what might otherwise be severe.

Excerpt from "Coming of Age: Eero Saarinen and Modern American Architecture"
Peter Papademetriou
Perspecta, Vol. 21, (1984), p. 123


I've been doing some research for History and coming across this article I was interested in the elements used to harmonise what was a design for the contemporary art museum in Washington D.C. 1939.
My fear is that from the exterior my architecture resembles something like a wheat silo. I am considering placing a pool of water at the entrance, which is the same dimesions as the dome that sits ontop of the structure. The sketches I've posted are a bunch of doodles trying to figure something out, it's really been bothering me. I knowingly chose my first model to develop because I prefered its continuity but I suppose it lacks in an initial wow factor.