The Harvard Five Documentary Film Screening

FILM SCREENING and DIRECTOR Q&A

New Canaan Library is delighted to share the incredible film by New Canaan's own Devon Chivvis. “The Harvard 5: a story of love, architecture, and a design revolution” documentary film 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. 

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the director, Devon Chivvis.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

DEVON CHIVVIS

Inspired by a life-long passion for visual storytelling combined with a love of art, architecture, photography and adventure Devon has over 20 years experience as a director, producer, and writer of narrative and non-fiction television, film, branded and social media content. Her goal is to tell compelling stories by bringing audiences into worlds they wouldn’t otherwise experience. Most recently, Devon returned from an expedition on Dr. Bob Ballard’s E/V Nautilus where she directed a special about the suspenseful search for the PanAm Samoan Clipper that went down in 1938 off American Samoa.

As co-founder of  (WLP), WORLD LIFE PRODUCTIONS, (formerly wild LIFE productions) she has built and oversees the production company while making adventure, travel, expedition, scientific, historical, and industrial content for clients such as PBS Discovery, Travel, Nat Geo, NOAA, NASA, Sony Pictures Television, Enron, and Heineken, TIME INC, as well as for foundations and museums such as the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, and other non-profits and government agencies.

Having grown up in a glass house designed by Eliot Noyes and Alan Goldberg, Devon didn't realize how unique that was until she went to college and tried to explain that riding around on a tricycle inside the dining and living room was a very common past time.  For her, this film is a work of passion, family history, and an homage to those artists and intellectuals, risk takers, friends and competitors who made New Canaan Modern... It's the unique story of the Harvard 5 that she is dying to share with the rest of the world.  Oh, and by the way, the gentleman in the tuxedo in the very first picture here is the filmmaker’s grandfather.