Slate on Saarinen

The National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., calls Eero Saarinen “the least-known famous architect of the 20th Century.” This illuminating, illustrated primer at Slate does something to change that. So does Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future, which moves at summer’s end from the National to Minneapolis, where the Walker and Minneapolis Institute of Art are divvying up the exhibition (opening in both locales September 13).

One reason the exhibition is headed here — the Walker’s design director and curator, Andrew Blauvelt, studied and later taught at Cranbrook, the school that gave birth to both Eero and his influential father, Eliel.