Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future

National Building Museum
Washington, DC
Eero Saarinen was one of the most prolific, fascinating and unorthodox masters of 20th century architecture. Famous for his simple, sweeping and arching shapes, Saarinen changed the face of domestic and industrial design in the United States by creating some of the world’s most innovative and widely recognized structures. In celebration of Eero Saarinen’s remarkable achievements, the National Building Museum, in collaboration with the Museum of Finnish Architecture, Helsinki and the Finnish Cultural Institute, will present the first major retrospective of his work. Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future, will feature full-scale building models, never-before seen drawings, furniture, photographs, films, and other artifacts. By exploring the architect’s wide-ranging career from the 1930s through the early 1960s, the exhibition will be the first opportunity to fully understand Saarinen’s collective work.

America's Kitchens

National Building Museum
Washington, DC
Most Americans expect certain features in today's kitchens - refrigerators, stoves, sinks, cabinets, and even microwaves. But what did kitchens look like before electrical appliances, before the Industrial Revolution, and before islands and wet bars were even in the kitchen vocabulary? America's Kitchens, a traveling exhibition organized by Historic New England, tells the story of how one room - the kitchen - has evolved and what it has meant to people over the course of more than three centuries. The show will feature recreated American kitchens from the early colonial period to the present, including a New England hearth, a southwestern hacienda, and a suburban 1950s kitchen.