USModernist Radio - Architecture You Love

Ready for a dose of music, design, and spectacle? Steve Young digs up wild, forgotten midcentury industrial musicals and somehow makes them catchy again. Megan Reilly turns WestEdge LA into a playground of design, ideas, and inspiration.  And Erik Stabnau keeps the venerable Glenn Miller Orchestra swinging, blowing the roof off of jazz clubs, arenas, coliseums, and amphitheaters after almost 100 y...

Archivist Natalie Morath is keeper of Eero Saarinen's GM Technical Center history, bringing the amazing campus to life for yet another generation of fans.  Linda Brettler renovated Raphael Soriano's 1964 Grossman House, and Marcos Santa Ana transformed the Wagoya House. Later, musical guest John Pizzarelli, with a sound that's both timeless and new.

Chris Roman designs a Modernist fire station in Richmond VA.  Authors Edward Dimendberg and Crosby Doe share the story of the breakout project for Richard Neutra, the Lovell Health house in Los Angeles.  Holland Murphy investigates an architectural mystery in Dallas, and from northwest Arkansas, musical guest Claudia Burson. 

Joe Massaro brought an unbuilt Frank Lloyd Wright design to life and weathered 20 years of criticism from Wright purists; Corbett Jones share his new documentary on Arts and architecture magazine and the Case Study Houses; Glenn Kurtz gracked down the men in Lewis Hine's iconic Empire State Building photographs, turning symbols into real people; and musical guest Jenna Esposito keeps the 60's aliv...

We've dug into the podcast vault for the story of Star Trek's furniture.  Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek launched a franchise in 1966 and is still going strong 60 years later. Sequels, movies, toys, fan films - there's just no end to Star Trek's bright, progressive, optimistic future where Earth has transcended national and international politics. Something architecture fans may have missed, and we...

Architects Carin Carlson and Tim Mitchell from Hennebery Eddy Architects restore mid-century and Mission 66–era architecture. Anthony Alofsin, one of the world's leading authorities on Frank Lloyd Wright, joins us to talk about his new book,  Frank Lloyd Wright's Bogk House  and reveals his new, famous cousin .   Paige Figenbaum, Executive Director of the Nevada Preservation Foundation, tells us a...

Kevin McCloud and Tim Ross are hosts of  Tim and Kev's Big Design Adventure,  a globe-trotting podcast centered on people, places, architecture, and design. Later, baritone saxophonist Leigh Pilzer, whose powerful sound has anchored ensembles from the DIVA Jazz Orchestra to the immortal Tommy Dorsey Orchestra.

The venerable magazine Architectural Record is one of the most influential design publications in the world, clocking in 135 years of extraordinary coverage.  You can see all their issues at usmodernist.org/index-ar. Today we'll explore one of their editors, Lawrence Kocher, with Luis Pancorbo and Ines Martin Robles.  We'll talk with Steven Hurtt on The Urban Design Legacy of famed critic Colin Ro...

First up, for our concrete fans, art critic and author Blake Gopnik looks inside modernism through his book, Brutalist Interiors.  Holland Murphy solves the mystery of a house in Dallas. From there, we head to St. Louis, where Pam Sanfilippo of the Eero Saarinen-designed Gateway Arch National Park shares how Saarinen's soaring 630-foot monument endures for millions of visitors.  And we wrap up wit...

Starting with Los Angeles, we'll talk with Rudolph Schindler homeowner, and star of Two and a Half Men, Holland Taylor.  Then we move to Palm Springs, the center of the Universe for midcentury Modernism. Everybody who's a fan of Modernism needs to plan a trip, and today we'll talk with Palm Springs tour guides Shann Carr and JD Cargill, author Adele Cygelman and her new documentary Arthur Elrod: M...

We've dug into the podcast vault to one of our favorite shows:  the story of the awesome Modernist house in the 2006 movie, The Lake House, starring Keanu Reaves and Sandra Bullock.  The house stole the show, and we'll talk to the architect Nathan Crowley and the engineer, Fritz Hengge.

Today we'll talk with producers of architecture and design documentaries featured in Kyle Bergman's Architecture and Design Film Festival which opened last fall and continues around the world.  Filmmaker Allie Rood's Prickly Mountain captures Vermont's countercultural design/build movement. Beck Carpenter's Space Architect tells the story of NASA architect Constance Adams, whose pioneering designs...

Carol and Dan Price stepped in to save architect Victor Lundy's Bellaire, Texas, home just weeks before demolition.  Erin DiFazio champions Sarasota's architectural heritage, and owner Joel Disend shares his 1959 Edward Durell Stone house in New Canaan, Connecticut.  Then from teen idol to chart-topper to movie star to pro basketball team owner (and Debbie's dad), we've got the great Pat Boone, wi...

In our continuing series, Children of Genius, we'll talk with the children of extraordinary architects. First, Llisa Demetrios, Curator of the Eames Institute and youngest granddaughter of design legends Ray and Charles Eames. Next, Sarah and Cameron Nims, children of Florida architect Rufus Nims, and later, we'll talk with Gabriela Liebert, the architect reviving Nim's iconic "Jetsons House" in M...

We've dug into the USModernist Radio vault to bring back a special interview on early 20th century Modernist Harwell Hamilton Harris, with author Lisa Germany and Harris' friend and executor, Frank Harmon. 

Today on the show, George writes a song in 30 seconds.  Architects Margaret Sullivan and Jim Richärd turn libraries into vibrant hubs. Glenda Flaim and Federico Engel restore a William Wurster house in San Francisco, and later we'll croon with musical guest Matt Belsante.

Today we welcome podcast host Evan Troxel of Archispeak; developer Ken Reiter, who answers the question, what do you do with a old Modernist school?  Jason Langkammerer, founder of AT6 Architecture + Design Build, on renovating his own house; and returning podcast guest, the enchanting Julianna Raye, singer-songwriter and CEO of Unified Mindfulness, blending soulful music with meditation practice.

Our first guest Volker Welter uncovers how architect Leopold Fischer fled Europe to shape Modernism in the US.  We have Cranbrook Museum's Chief Curator Andrew Blauvelt, and later, musical guests Gregg and Kathy Gelb in a tribute to Paul Montgomery.

We've dug into the podcast vault to bring back two interviews with internationally respected architects Moshe Safdie and Danlel Libeskind.  

Shane Hood safeguards Tulsa's architectural gems. Peter Maunu lovingly restored Frank Lloyd Wright's Lamberson House in Iowa.  Emily Almloff, the youngest licensed architect in the US, is transforming hospitals across the Midwest. Later, musical guests Danger Hall, with Peter Lamb and Daniel Hall.  

First up, three prolific architecture authors: Alan Hess, Dominic Bradbury, and Sam Lubell. Then we meet Harper Halprin and Aaron Leshtz of AAHA Studio — a marriage proving that design collaboration isn't just for coworkers. And later, Montreal-born jazz master Steve Rosenbloom, who leads a 16-piece ensemble by night and is a psychologist by day.

Aidan Anderson is a former carpenter in Sydney Australia who turned a local furniture business into the Local Project, a worldwide media company for architecture and design. Trading a career a NASA for furniture, you will meet The Rattan Man Harvey G. Schwartz. And later, Hugh Martin, one of the founders of the UK Modern House Index, a huge digital archive documenting British modernist homes from...

We've dug into the podcast vault to bring back a show from the first year of USModernist Radio.  One of the best 80s films is Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Here's the plot: near the end of the school year, high school senior Ferris Bueller (played by Matthew Broderick) fakes being sick to stay home. His parents believe him, though his sister Jeanie (played by Jennifer Grey, the baby you don't back int...

Tom Kundig of Seattle's Olson Kundig is a superstar in residential architecture, and he's got a new book, Complete Houses .  But you can't have a world-class architect without a world-class builder, and we'll talk with Kundig's close friend and frequent collaborator, Jim Dow of Dowbuilt. Later, you'll hear Veronneau, a husband-and-wife duo whose tunes go around the world.

Back on the show is one of our favorite guests, YouTube architecture star Professor Stewart Hicks; Brian Horowitz revives the joy and nostalgia of pinball, that midcentury pastime that was going to rot our midcentury minds; and author Hillary Carlip shares the wonderful world of Willis Wonderland, a new popup book for all ages.