#122/Eliot Noyes, One of the Harvard Five: Fred Noyes

Born in Boston, architect Eliot Noyes graduated Harvard University. After working for Boston's Coolidge Shepley Bulfinch & Abbott, he left to work for Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer. Awarded a Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship, he toured the US visiting Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater and Taliesin; Eliel Saarinen's Cranbrook Academy of Art; and Richard Neutra houses.  After returning briefly to Gropius and Breuer, he became the first director of the Industrial Design Department at the Museum of Modern Art in 1940, launching the careers of Charles and Ray Eames.  Noyes redefined how design was perceived inside major corporations such as IBM and Mobile.  He is recognized for designing World's Fair pavilions in Brussels, Belgium, San Antonio, Montreal, and New York. He was one of the noted Harvard Five architects, which included Marcel Breuer, Philip Johnson, John Johansen, and Landis Gores.

Our guest Fred Noyes is the son of Eliot Noyes. Fred Noyes worked for Graham Gund and Cambridge Seven and for over thirty years has run his own firm designing everything from hospitals to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s summer White House on Martha’s Vineyard. He was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Education from the Boston Architectural College in 2007 and lectures on architecture, biology, visual studies, and biochemistry. He owns the Noyes House II where he grew up, a house that he put under a preservation easement -- which protects it forever.