shaping the future

Today has been a bit of a busy day (for me, anyway). I went downtown to register for classes (woo 20th Century American Furniture wooo), then headed over to the National Building Museum to check out the Eero Saarinen show, Shaping the Future. I love Saarinen's furniture designs, but knew nothing about his architecture work, nor that Saarinen had worked with Charles Eames (and, in fact, named his youngest son after him).In fact, despite its being my local airport, I had no idea that Saarinen had designed Dulles.
Then of course there's his extremely famous Gateway Arch, another one I've seen up close and personal and about which was ignorant.
The exhibit was comprehensive and quite good; I highly recommend it to anyone in the DC area. It runs until the 23rd of August. I also recommend the bookstore at the National Building Museum. It's got absolutely every book one could possibly conceive of relating to architecture and design, from academic texts to the new Apartment Therapy book. I would have bought the place out if I could have, as it is I restrained myself to three low-priced Taschen books: Saarinen (of course), Eames, and (to keep with the theme) 1000 Chairs.

(most photos from Wikipedia Commons)