Architect Eliot Noyes is a transitional figure in the history of American design. Educated by Walter Gropius at Harvard, Noyes brings a modernist approach to corporate America. His impact on companies like IBM and Mobil paved the way for Apple and many of the other design-conscious brands we know today. Modernism, Inc. follows Noyes’ career up to a time when disruptive designers of the early 70s began pushing back against the status quo. This is Director Jason Cohn’s second film at ADFF, after Eames: The Architect and the Painter showed at the 2011 festival. With this year’s film, the director considers contemporary questions about the role of a designer in today’s world.

Hosted by Grace Farms Architecture Advisor Toshihiro Oki, this screening will be introduced by Grace Farms CEO & Founder, Sharon Prince. A Q&A with architect Frederick Noyes, Director Jason Cohn, IBM corporate archivist Jamie Martin, and Director of the ADFF Kyle Bergman, will follow.

The screening will take place at Grace Farms in the Sanctuary amphitheater. Grace Farms was designed by SANAA, a Tokyo-based architecture firm founded by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, 2010 Pritzker Prize Laureates. Grace Farms is only a few miles from Eliot Noyes’ family home in New Canaan.