Series IV: Project Records, 1936-1989

This large and significant series is composed of project records, which include correspondence, photographs, drawings, negatives, clippings, reports, specifications, materials samples, and unique materials relating to projects designed by the firms Saarinen and Swanson, Saarinen and Saarinen Associates, and Eero Saarinen Associates. The records span 1938 to 1961, as well as projects completed by his surviving parners after Saarinen's death.

The firm assigned each project a job number indicating the year that the project was begun and the number of the project within that year. For example, "5408" was the eighth project to have been assigned a number in 1954. One exception to this numbering convention is Job #154, Kleinhans Music Hall. The material in this series is arranged in job number order and therefore in loose chronological order. Job numbers are not always sequential, possibly owing to small projects in the office being cancelled or otherwise abandoned. Early projects by Saarinen did not have a job number, and thus are arranged alphabetically at the beginning of this series with the designation No Job Number [NJN]. More significant projects have their own scope and content notes describing pertinent details about the projects, such as contractors, other designers, and landscape architects. These notes were researched and authored in large part by the research team for the exhibition catalogue Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future, published in 2006 by Yale University Press. Significant scarcity of certain types of material for projects is mentioned in these notes. As a general rule, correspondence between Saarinen's firm and its clients does not exist in this collection; correspondence listed for the various projects is likely to be publication requests.

In order to maintain a cohesive job record for each project, drawings, which are large and required special containers, have been listed with other project records in this series. This presents drawings intellectually with the rest of the project material, but results in a non-sequential box number listing.

An item-level drawings inventory for each project was created by Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates and donated with the rest of the Saarinen material. To view this inventory, click on the "inventory" link just below the "drawings" heading within each project subseries. (This inventory is not available in the PDF version of this finding aid.)

Oversize material, including mounted presentation drawings and oversize photographs, is cross-referenced to the Oversize listing in this finding aid. Other types of non-job-related material relating to various projects – awards, writings about projects, publicity brochures and photographs – are located in Series II and III.