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The Harvard 5: a story of love, architecture, and a design revolution

Sponsored Project

  • Devon Chivvis , Director
  • Alicia Albee, Producer
A black and white photo from the 1960's of a mid-century modern house at night. It's an "upside down" house where the second story is larger than the first story so the house looks like two elegant rectangles stacked atop each other. The house is lit from the inside and a tall, daper man in a tuxedo stands on the upstairs terrace. A woman sits inside on the living room couch, and down below two young children can be seen.

About the Project

“The Harvard 5: a story of love, architecture, and a design revolution” is a documentary film that tells the little-known story of five ground-breaking architects and designers who ignited a modern design revolution from the least likely place –colonial New Canaan, CT.

“The Harvard Five” as they became known–Philip Johnson, John Johansen, Landis Gores, Eliot Noyes, and Marcel Breuer– were fueled by a sense of hope and optimism in the wake of WWII, but their modern ideals and avant-garde designs were met with shock by the locals in this traditional town which did not understand these pioneers –or their "Kleenex box” houses.

Nevertheless, the Harvard 5 found New Canaan’s wooded, rolling hills to be the perfect canvas for experimentation with Bauhaus ideals in design and architecture. From there, they introduced an intellectual movement that changed the landscape of this New England community forever and would resonate worldwide.

Through interviews with the spouses, family, clients, and biographers of The Harvard 5, this film weaves together the fascinating personal and professional stories of these architects and designers whose risk-taking would define American Modernism in the 20th–century.

Never-before-seen interviews with John Johansen, the last of the Harvard 5; Pam Gores, wife of Landis; Jens Risom, world-renown furniture designer; John Black Lee, “the 6th” of the Harvard 5; Fred Noyes, son of Eliot; Craig Bassam and Scott Fellows of BassamFellows; Hilary Lewis, Philip Johnson expert and biographer, and more.