In 1948, Pastor William Buege commissioned the renowned Finnish-American architect Eliel Saarinen to design Christ Church Lutheran in Minneapolis’s Longfellow neighborhood. Saarinen, designer of the Helsinki Railway Station, architect, and director of the Cranbrook Educational Community in Ann Arbor, produced a masterwork. The architectural press lauded Christ Church as embracing modern principles while eschewing historical styles. It was - and is - widely considered to be the building that heralded a new form of ecclesiastic architecture.

Four years after Eliel Saarinen’s death, the congregation approached his son, Eero Saarinen, to expand the building with an Education Wing. Eero, architect of the St. Louis Arch, collaborated with Glen Paulsen, AIA, in the design of an elegant and deferential addition. Completed the same year as his exuberant Dulles Airport and TWA Flight Center, the Education Wing belies its large program, housing the elegant Luther Lounge a sky-lit atrium, spacious education rooms, a library, an industrial-scale kitchen, and a gymnasium/theatre.