USModernist Radio - Architecture You Love
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Listen to one of America's top-rated architecture podcasts as the USModernist® Radio crew talks and laughs with fascinating people who own, create, love, and hate Modernist architecture, the most controversial houses and buildings in the world.
364 Episodes
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Joining the show are three documentary filmmakers bravely capturing architects and architecture on film. Making these movies is an incredible labor of love; it takes a tremendous amount of work and time, often years, you’re fundraising continually, production is expensive, even when done on the cheap, and the financial reward at the end of all that, well, let’s say you could do better working a couple of months under the golden arches. That’s why these folks are our heroes and heroines. We’ll talk to Louise Lemoine of Beka and Lemoine, Denise Zmekhol, and Simon Mark-Brown.
From the great postwar transatlantic liners to the sleek Scandinavian cruise ships of the 1970s, to Captain Stuebing and the Love Boat, ships and private yachts are also design showcases that featured edgy, trendsetting architecture. Maritime historian and art dealer Peter Knego and yacht owner Brian Biggott joins George poolside at Modernism Week to talk about nautical Modernism. Later on, from the studio, music from the next generation of the Dave Brubeck dynasty, his son Chris Brubeck, who grew up in a Modernist house.
In May of 1950, a young man attended a packed lecture by Frank Lloyd Wright in the then-new Reynolds Coliseum at NC State in Raleigh NC. It was the largest architecture lecture ever in North Carolina. He was also witness to the construction of the 1954 Catalano House, sadly destroyed in 2001. Today George talks with architect Truman Newberry, now in his 90’s. And later on, music with the charming and mindful Julianna Raye.
Recorded poolside at the Hotel Skylark during Modernism Week in Palm Springs, prolific architect and architectural historian Alan Hess talks about California architect Irving Gill, who was doing Modernism way back in 1905; plus Erin Ellwood, daughter of Craig Ellwood, on her father’s singular legacy. Later, back in the studio, music with the enchanting Lucy Woodward.
In another of our wildly popular Children of Genius shows, we’re honored to talk with furniture designer Mira Nakashima, who carries on the tradition of her father, George Nakashima, and Peg Risom Bull, daughter of Danish furniture designer Jens Risom.
An exhibition last fall on the late architect Myron Goldfinger opened and USModernist was there moderating the panel’s remembrances. Circle Square Triangle: The Architecture of Myron Goldfinger, closed at the end of 2023 but will be touring other locations in 2024. Myron Goldfinger’s signature Modernist houses of the Hamptons and Westchester in New York include the wild party house featured in The Wolf of Wall Street. A favorite architect of New York City’s rich and powerful during the 1980s, Myron died in the summer 2023 at the age of ninety. Talking about Myron Goldfinger’s legacy were his wife and partner, designer June Goldfinger; Laura Blau, who has lived in a Goldfinger house for 50 years; legendary architectural photographer Norman McGrath; architects John Field and Joeb Moore, who worked with Myron; and designer and Hamptons preservationist Timothy Godbold. Recorded at the New Canaan Museum in the epicenter of Connecticut Modernism, New Canaan CT. Later on, we spend quality time with musical guest Lucy Wijnands.
Creating affordable, transportable, innovative prefab houses has been the holy grail of architecture for 100 years, and if you were reading DWELL in the early 2000’s, you couldn’t miss their coverage of the latest adventurers on that quest. Joining us today is one of the most successful, Michelle Kaufmann, now with Google. Later on George travels to Stamford CT to talk with Modernist architect Roger Ferris, and we wrap up with fellow podcasters Ron Melk and Kevin Kennedy of Your Valuable Home.
Ohio native Dan Duckham moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1956 after graduating in architecture from Miami University of Ohio. Three years later in 1962 he formed his own firm and over the last seven decades, Dan Duckham completed more than 500 projects, including many Modernist houses. Dan Duckham is one of the last living masters of Florida modern, and joining him is architect and author Randolph Henning, who in addition to his design practice writes books on architects following the tradition of Frank Lloyd Wright such as Alfred Browning Parker and Aaron Green. His next book is on Dan Duckham. Later on, the Queen of the American Songbook, musical guest Ann Hampton Calloway.
Recorded at New York's Architecture and Design Film Festival, George talks with Jason Cohn and returning podcast guest Fred Noyes talking Modernism Inc, a documentary about Eliot Noyes. We’ll also visit with another filmmaker from the festival, Hans Christian Post, who has a few problems with idyllic Copenhagen. And later on, music with North Carolina’s legendary bandleader, trumpeter Jim Ketch.
There’s a new edition out of the popular book Midcentury Houses Today, and we’ll have on co-author and architectural photographer Michael Biondo. Next up, someone we admire for keeping Modernist houses on the radar in Los Angeles, filmmaker Russell Brown, founder of FORT LA, aka Friends of Residential Treasures. Later on, music from Durham’s Sharp 9 Jazz club with pianist Lenore Raphael and guitarist Howard Alden.
Two authors of new books: Todd Cronan, with the book Nothing Permanent: Modern Architecture in California; and, don’t throw any stones, it’s Andrew Heid, with the book Glass Houses. Later on, George and Tom welcome musical guest Claudia Acuna.
Have you seen that photo of the two gorgeous glamourous blondes, sitting in loungers, sipping drinks by the pool of a Richard Neutra house in Palm springs? That iconic photo, called Poolside Gossip, was taken over 50 years ago by Slim Aarons. Joining us Shawn Waldron, author of a new book on Slim Aarons, and one of the two women in that photo, the Queen of Palm Springs Nelda Linsk. Later on, music with China Forbes from Pink Martini, who will tell us what really happened with Eugene.
We gear up 2024 with conversations with Damien Lipp and Stephanie Mauro on tiny houses in Iceland; Long Beach Architecture Week’s Sal Flores; a Modernist renovation in Altadena CA with Goli Karimi, and later a wonderful musical guest, Nicole Zuraitis.
In October, USModernist was at the Palm Springs Modernism Show and visited with hundreds of wonderful fans from around the country. We are going to be in Palm Springs again in February for Modernism Week, and in preparation, George spoke with today’s guests, architectural archivist Frank Lopez of Sunnylands, the Palm Springs Modernism Show’s Rosemary Krieger, artist Christopher Georgesco, Destination Eichler’s Karen Nepacena, and musical guest Lizzy Shapiro of LA’s hottest jazz and swing band, Lizzy and the Triggermen.
Returning podcast guest Takashi Yanai is a partner at Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects where he is director of both the Los Angeles and San Francisco residential studios. Returning podcast guest Mina Chow is and architect and Principal of mc2 Spaces, a multimedia company. She is also an architecture professor at USC. Mina and Takashi talk about the contributions of Asian-American architects, many of whom suffered through the forced relocation of internment camps during WWII.
Happy 2024! We open up the new year with another great episode in our continuing series Children of Genius. Francesca Breuer Wallace gives her first interview - ever - on her father Marcel Breuer; and later it’s the grandson of Aino and Alvar Aalto, Heikki Aalto-Alanen, with a new book on his grandparents.
What better subject to talk about during the holidays than Modernist bliss? Joining us is Charlotte North Carolina architect and author Toby Witte. And later, not one but two holiday musical guests: from his new Christmas album, Michael Sinatra, and bringing holiday cheer from Raleigh NC, Peter Lamb and the Wolves.
In architecture up until the 1990’s, it was raining men, and the few women architects had to work twice as hard to get the same recognition and the same pay, if they got either at all. That's slowly changing, thanks to pioneering leaders like today's guests. Phyllis Bronfman Lambert is a Canadian architect, philanthropist, and member of the family that brought Seagrams spirits to fame in the 20th century. She created the Canadian Centre for Architecture, one of the world's leading architectural museums and research centers and 1954, she oversaw the design of the Seagram Building in New York City by Mies van der Rohe. Later on, it's the first woman president of the AIA, Susan Maxman, who in the 90's broke a century of male leadership in America's largest professional association for architects.
Be careful about giving a coffee table book to your architecture-lovin’ spouse for Christmas, because one day, you might have a new Modernist house by a famous architect - plus a railroad - on your property. Joining us is Seattle brand designer Lou Maxon and his long strange journey to build a Tom Kundig house with a unique Kundig gizmo on rails. Later on, returning podcast guest Peter McMahon of the Cape Cod Modern House Trust shares his group’s wildly successful preservation of Modernist cottages, including their new campaign to buy and restore the Marcel Breuer house in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, largely untouched since Breuer died over 40 years ago. Learn more about the Maxon house at www.maxonhouse.com and www.maxonrailway.com. Learn more about the CCMHT at www.ccmht.org.
As our 23 loyal listeners know, we’re solid fans of Bjarke Ingels and his wildly successful design practice Bjarke Ingels Group spanning London, Copenhagen, New York, and China. With projects like the combination incinerator and ski slope in Copenhagen, and Via 57, One Hudson, the Spiral, and the BIG U flood protection barrier wrapping around most of Manhattan, the firm continues to do amazing projects, even designing habitats for the moon and mars. George was back at the Bjarke Ingels Group offices recently to interview BIG partner Martin Voelkle, who has overseen the design, development, and completion of projects such as 2 World Trade Center in New York, the Smithsonian master plan in Washington D.C., and the King’s Cross Google Headquarters in London. He’s also manages BIG’s few but high-profile house designs.
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