Eliot Noyes

First Major Monograph on the Man Responsible for PermanentlyRevolutionizing Design in Corporate America;First Director of Industrial Design at MoMA."Why isn''t Eliot Noyes as famous as his friends? . . . Contemporaryarticles on Noyes emphasize his charm, stability, and conservatism toexplain why even then he was not better known, as well as how he achievedso much power in the corporate hierarchy."Metropolis Magazine Who was EliotNoyes (1910-77)?Architect?Industrial Designer?The first Director ofMoMA''s Department of Industrial Design?Pioneering businessman?Noyes''scredits include all of the above, but the reality is that this foundingmember of "The Harvard Five" is an under known icon. His legacy includes avast web of connections linking influential figures, such as Marcel Breuer,Charles and Ray Eames, Alexander Calder, and Paul Rand, to influentialcorporations, including IBM, Westinghouse, and Mobil.At the epicentre ofall these famous names sits a genius who permanently changed the role ofdesign and architecture in corporate America. ELIOT NOYES by Gordon Bruce, is the first book to explore the uniquearchitect, designer, and businessman''s life and work.This ground-breakingmonograph combines lively text with archival and new color photography,rare drawings, plans and a diverse range of documentary material--much ofwhich is previously unpublished.Part of a larger reawakening of interest in the architect''s work, the bookappears at the climax of the debate of the fate of the award-winning Noyesfamily residence in Connecticut.Noyes attracted fellow members of theHarvard Five to New Canaan by building his first modern house there in1947.Yet, while Philip Johnson''s Glass House is now a National TrustHistoric site, the future of the Noyes'' home is unknown.Eliot Noyes fused architecture, art, interiors, products, and graphics toconstruct a unique corporate style.He was personally responsible for thedesign of some notable twentieth-century classics, notably IBM''s Selectrictypewriter and Mobil Oil''s service stations and gas pumps.His belief in aunified theory of design, where all elements--large and small--areconnected and expressed in the best possible way reconstructed America''scorporate attitude towards design forever.His architectural and designprinciples were about a way of life, not simply a professional attitude. Eliot Noyes used to say, Design is a means by which you see yourself and ameans by which you express yourself to others.''After graduating from Harvard''s School of Design, Noyes began his career asan architect working in the office of Marcel Breuer and Walter Gropius. Gropius''s recommendation secured Noyes the position as the first Directorof the Industrial Design department at MoMA in the 1940s.At MoMA heorganized a now famous competition to discover imaginative new designs forcontemporary furniture.And, so began his lifetime commitment to launchingthe careers of young designers, and ultimately resulting in a chainreaction that ended with the invention of Eero Saarinen''s "Womb" chair andEames''s plywood chairs.After the MoMA, Noyes focused on design consulting for major U.S.companies.From the late 1950s until his death in 1977, Noyes wasConsulting Director of Design for IBM, Mobil Oil, Westinghouse and CumminsEngine Company, while working with a myriad of other firms.Re-designingentire product lines, he focused on how all the individual parts, from thebuildings to the offices to the graphic design, contributed in completingthe total package and ultimately expressing the company''s significance anddirection.Enlisting pioneering designers and prominent architects, suchas Ivan Chermayeff, Tom Geismar, Gordon Bunshaft, and Paul Rudolph, whilerunning his own office of architecture and industrial design, he was theman responsible for changing the way corporations think about design andits impact on business.The publication of ELIOT NOYES finally gives Noyes his much deservedmoment.It''s an essential book for any student of architectBruce, Gordon is the author of 'Eliot Noyes ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780714843506 and ISBN 0714843504.