Modernism Inc.

FAIN: TD-250065-16

Catticus Corporation (Berkeley, CA 94710-2597)
Jason Cohn (Project Director: January 2016 to July 2024)

Development of a one-hour documentary film that examines the life and work of architect and industrial designer Eliot Noyes.

Modernism, Inc., explores the rise and fall of American Modernism through the lens of one of its most influential practitioners, Eliot Noyes, who built the design programs for the likes of IBM, Westinghouse, and Mobil Oil. The film weaves Noyes’ fascinating personal story with the broader context of corporate America’s fulsome embrace of modernism during the period of postwar economic expansion and culminates in the under-documented backlash against Noyes and his generation of modernists during the counter-cultural upheaval of the Vietnam era.

Associated Products

Production Script, Modernism Inc. (Script)
Title: Production Script, Modernism Inc.
Writer: Jason Cohn
Director: Jason Cohn
Producer: Jason Cohn
Abstract: Modernism, Inc. is a one-hour documentary intended for public television and other outlets that tells the story of Eliot Noyes, the iconic midcentury architect and designer who built the design programs for some of America’s most powerful postwar corporations. The film weaves Noyes’ story with the broader context of corporate America’s fulsome embrace of modernism during the period of postwar economic expansion and culminates in the under-documented backlash against Noyes and his generation of modernists during the countercultural upheaval of the Vietnam era. The life and work of Eliot Noyes in our telling is a vehicle to explore the much larger story of the intersection of postwar business, technology and design, a story that continues to resonate in the contemporary context.
Year: 2018

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