Episode 107: Loja Saarinen
In Helsinki, Finland, on March 16th, 1879, Minna Carolina Mathilde Louise Gesellius was born - everybody called her Loja (a nickname from Louise). Her parents were Herman Otto Gesellius, a food importer/ wholesaler/ businessman; and her mother Emilie Karoline Auguste Struckmann. Loja would attend the preparatory school at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki, where she studied sculpture and was introduced to weaving, textile, and clothing design. In 1903, Loja moved to Hvittrask with her brother, architect Herman Gesellius. There she would work on commissions for interiors, photography, and of course sculpture. Herman had a firm called Gesellius, Lindgren, and Saarinen, which included himself, Armas Lindgren, and Eliel Saarinen. When Loja went to Hvittrask to join her brother, there she met Eliel. Eliel marries Loja on March 6, 1904. Loja gave birth to her daughter Eva-Lisa, who they called Pipsan on March 31, 1905, and five years later in 1910, she gave birth to her son Eero. Eile; gets invited to teach at the University of Michigan, so the Saarinens move to America in 1922. Eilel would become the chief architect of the campus. And Loja is by his side, bouncing ideas with him. In 1925, while still living in Ann Arbor, Loja would make the models of the Cranbrook Campus. Amongst several projects one includes, the Saarinen house, Loja designed the landscape around the house, and she also designed the landscape surrounding Triton Pools in front of Cranbrook Art Museum. Loja would oversee the planting of hundreds of thousands of annuals aka flowers around the Cranbrook Campus. In 1950, Eilel would pass away. Loja would move into a house that was designed by her son Eero. In 1968, Loja would pass away.
Caryatid: Estelle Bailey Babenzien
Estelle is half Ghanaian, born and raised in the UK, and holds a BA in Fashion from Central Saint Martins. Now she is based in New York where she has her firm Dream Awake which is a full-service interior Architecture and Experiential Design Studio. She also has a clothing brand, named "Noah" that was originally started with her husband but was relaunched in 2015 as a joint partnership. A true collaboration between wife and husband, the Husband does the clothes, and Estelle creates these “spatial experiences of the brand’s retail spaces.”
References
“ABOUT LOJA SAARINEN.” Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research, 2 Feb. 2022, center.cranbrook.edu/about-loja-saarinen.
Cranbrook Art Museum. “Loja Saarinen and Eliel Saarinen – Rug No. 2 | Cranbrook Art Museum.” Cranbrook Art Museum, 22 Sept. 2016, cranbrookartmuseum.org/artwork/loja-saarinen-and-eliel-saarinen.
Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research. “Room for a Lady: Loja Saarinen at Cranbrook.” YouTube, 16 June 2023, www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lwA7RT7XuM
“Loja Saarinen House – Michigan Modern.” Michigan Modern, www.michiganmodern.org/modern-buildings/loja-saarinen-house.
“Loja Saarinen: Lady of Fashion.” Cranbrook Kitchen Sink, 2 Mar. 2019, cranbrookkitchensink.com/2019/03/01/loja-saarinen-lady-of-fashion.
“‘Room for a Lady: Loja Saarinen at Cranbrook’—The Director’s Cut.” Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research, 1 Mar. 2023, center.cranbrook.edu/room-lady-loja-saarinen-cranbrook%E2%80%94-director%E2%80%99s-cut.
Saarinen House | Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios. artistshomes.org/site/saarinen-house#prettyPhoto.
Saarinen, Loja (1879–1968) | Encyclopedia.com. www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/saarinen-loja-1879-1968.
Svinhufvud, Leena. “The Politics of Textile Entrepreneurship Loja Saarinen and Her Weaving Studio in the Cranbrook Art Community.” DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln, digitalcommons.unl.edu/tsaconf/748.
Weaving a New Story: Cranbrook Centers Loja Saarinen | National Trust for Historic Preservation. savingplaces.org/stories/weaving-a-new-story-the-cranbrook-art-museum-centers-loja-saarinen.
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