Eero Saarinen, Charles Eames and Harry Bertoia–three design legends whose long relationships first developed at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan during a magical time when they studied and taught together. Each has played significant roles in postwar American design, and their influence is still extraordinary in today’s design world.

Enter Susan Saarinen, Carla (Eames) Hartman, and Celia Bertoia–three descendants of these design icons. Having only met each other for the first time in 2007, the same connectedness that brought their famous relatives, two fathers, and one grandfather together continues with a new generation to carry their legacy.

Join the Daughters of Design as they “compare chairs and childhoods” with an educational and entertaining presentation filled with stories, family photos, and memorabilia. An audience favorite at MW 2016 and MW 2020, it is an honor and a great pleasure to again welcome them back in 2025 to help celebrate Modernism Week’s 20th year.

Susan Saarinen, an artist, designer, educator, and landscape architect, will speak about her family history and childhood memories of her father, architect and designer Eero Saarinen, her grandfather, famed Finnish architect Eliel, and her grandmother, Louise (Loja), an accomplished weaver.

Carla Hartman, director of Education for the Eames Office, will share stories of her time spent in the Eames-designed Case Study House with her grandparents, Charles and Ray Eames, and how the interplay of light, color, season, and weather continually changed to highlight different features of the space throughout the year, and the legacy they left for those of us working and playing in the 21st century and beyond–the Eames Principles.

Celia Bertoia, director of the Harry Bertoia Foundation and author of The Life and Work of Harry Bertoia (2015), will talk about the personal side of her father, designer and sculptor Harry Bertoia, development of his classic wire frame 'Diamond’ chair and his work from jewelry to monumental public sculpture.