The radiant sun : designer Ruth Adler Schnee
Terri Sarris (Producer, Director), Ronit Eisenbach (Producer), Frank Pahl, Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation
The Radiant Sun explores the life and work of mid-century American designer Ruth Adler Schnee, who has been called a "Detroit treasure" and an "American legacy." Along with her family, Schnee fled Nazi Germany soon after Kristalnacht, and settled in Detroit. An internship with industrial designer Raymond Loewy and degrees from RISD and Cranbrook under Eliel Saarinen prepared her for a design career. With her husband Edward Schnee, she formed Adler-Schnee Associates, a design studio and store that helped bring modernism to Michigan. As a space planner, Adler-Schnee collaborated with noted architects including Yamasaki, Fuller, and Wright. The pivotal exhibition Design 1935-1965 : What Modern Was (1991), featured Adler-Schnee's textile designs. At age 90, she continues to work as a space planner and textile designer. The film The Radiant Sun adds Adler-Schnee's story to the growing scholarship on the American Modernist-era and expands knowledge about women designers' influence on the built environment. -- From back of DVD case
DVD Video, English, 2013
Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, New York, 2013