Eliot Noyes

American architect

the animator

Eliot Fette Noyes (August 12, 1910 – July 18, 1977) was an American architect and industrial designer, who worked on projects for IBM, most notably the IBM Selectric typewriter and the IBM Aerospace Research Center in Los Angeles, California. Noyes was also a pioneer in development of comprehensive corporate wide design programs that integrated design strategy and business strategy. Noyes worked on corporate imagery for IBM, Mobil Oil, Cummins Engine and Westinghouse.

Eliot Noyes was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Shortly after his birth, Noyes moved to Colorado where he resided until age seven. At this point, Noyes and his family moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Noyes’ father taught English at Harvard University and his mother was an accomplished pianist. He was not always set on architecture. As a teen, he seriously contemplated becoming a painter; however by age 19 he had his mind set on architecture. He first enrolled at Harvard University in 1932 to obtain a bachelor's degree in the Classics. Noyes’ experience at Harvard was unlike the other four members of the Harvard Five. When he arrived at Harvard, the school was still under the influence of the Beaux Arts architecture movement – hardly the modernist influence that the other four received. However, after meeting guest lecturer Le Corbusier in the school library, his architectural outlook changed entirely. He was inspired by Le Corbusier's work and researched the Bauhaus. In his junior year at Harvard, he traveled to Iran for an archaeological expedition. Upon returning to the school, Noyes found that Harvard had undergone a complete revolution. Gropius and Breuer had already arrived there, and with them came a new modernist spirit at the school.

After graduating with his masters in architecture in 1938, Noyes joined Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer's firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1939 to 1946, Noyes was employed by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City as director of industrial design. He took leave from MoMA during World War II to set up a program to explore the potential uses for gliders by the Army Air Force. He later served as an industrial designer for Norman Bel Geddes and Co.

Noyes' first house, built in 1941, was the Jackson House in Dover, MA. This was followed in 1950 by the Tallman House and Bremer House in New Canaan. Residing in New Canaan for 30 years, he designed more residential buildings including the Ault House (1951), the Weeks House (1953), and the Noyes House (1955). In 1953 he designed bubble houses which were built the next year in Hobe Sound, Florida. One of his most notable designs was the Wilton Library (1974) in the neighboring town of Wilton, Connecticut. (and hired the graphic design firm Chermayeff & Geismar to redesign the Mobil logo). His New Canaan, Connecticut residence is regarded as an important piece of Modernist architecture.

Noyes married the architect Mary "Molly" Duncan Weed (1915–2010) who created much of the interior design work on Noyes' projects. They had four children: Meridee, animator Eli, architect Frederick, , and graphic artist Derry.

"Details must play their part in relation to the overall concept and character of the building, and are the means by which the architect may underline his main idea, reinforce it, echo it, intensify or dramatize it." "One thing I am not going to become is a guy who is called in to change the expression on the corporate face by hanging abstract paintings on the office walls."