USModernist Radio - Architecture You Love

Let's say you collect stamps.  If you go to the stamp club, you're gonna find people who collect more stamps than you.  Then if you go to the stamp convention, you're gonna find an even more successful crowd.  Then if you go to Sotheby's for one of their top stamp auctions, you're gonna find Mr. – or Ms. -- Big.  In the world of serial Modernist owners, Mark Haddawy is Mr. Big.  He's had his hands...

It's almost a certainty that before anyone owns a Modernist house, they own a piece of Modernist furniture, the gateway drug of great architecture.  Today's guests are Amy Auscherman, design archivist at Herman Miller, famous for the  Aeron chair ,  Noguchi table ,  Marshmallow sofa ,  and the  Eames Lounge Chair,   among many other icons, and Gwen Emery, Director of Library Environments at NC Sta...

Tom Wright studies volcanoes.  If that's not exciting enough right there, and it certainly was for us, he's also the grandson of Frank Lloyd Wright and lives in a Wright House - the last one still owned by the family. Also joining us is Wright author Steven Reiss and later, music from the breakout singer of the 1961 Newport Jazz Festival, Carol Sloane. 

Architect Jim Evans moved to the Modernist mecca of New Canaan CT in 1957. By then the town had many Modernist houses, not only by the Harvard Five of Breuer, Noyes, Johnson, Johansen, and Gores but others like Frank Lloyd Wright and Edward Durell Stone. USModernist special correspondent Rafe Schlanger talked with Evans in what would be Evans' last interview. Later, enchanting jazz from Manhattan...

Every town hopes that someone will come along, and at no expense to the town, create something beautiful. We're not talking a new mall. We're talking acres of flowing grounds open to the public, an award-winning complex of stunningly beautiful buildings by a world-class architecture firm, and a philanthropic mission that includes, among other noteworthy causes, the elimination of slave labor in th...

Bertie County, North Carolina, has only about 19,000 people, about 62% Black. That's fewer than in most city zip codes. It's one of the poorest county in the state, and the population is down about 10% over the last decade. Black farmers lost much of their land as subsidies and credit by the USDA heavily favored white farmers. In 2007, the schools were in terrible shape, as you might expect. Then,...

Tomorrow's architects and their architecture critics are today's teenagers. Joining us are Danielle Willkens, author of the new book, Architecture for Teens: A Beginner Book for Aspiring Architects, and an actual teen critic, Louisa Whitmore, a TikTok sensation from our favorite jazz nation, Canada. Later on, surprise, surprise - Canadian jazz with Sophie Milman.

Every industry has insiders, and no city other than perhaps New York attracts more attention from residential architecture than Los Angeles.  Joining us is James McClain, co-founder and editor-at-large at Dirt.com, which tracks significant celebrity houses. He's James now, but previously he had a secret identity. Later on, music from legendary jazz musician, Dave Brubeck, and his son, Darius Brube...

In our ongoing series Children of Genius, we've spoken with Raymond and Dion Neutra, sons of Richard Neutra; Guilliame Schindler, great-grandson of Rudolph Schindler; Randy Koenig, son of Pierre Koenig; Susan and Eric Saarinen, children of Eero Saarinen; Eric Lloyd Wright, grandson of Frank Lloyd Wright; Emily Ain, daughter of Gregory Ain; Celia Bertoia, daughter of Harry Bertoia, Eames Demetrios...

Have you ever wondered what's it's like to live in a $5M apartment in the New York skyline?  What about a $10 million coop?  A $25 million penthouse?  Joining us is Andi Schmied, aka Gabriella, a visual artist who pretty much became a performance artist, talking her way into some of these very posh residences. Later on, jazz with Bobbie Eakes, a face you know from Days of our Lives, The Bold and t...

From an author who's created a worldwide book of mostly Modernist buildings to a master Modernist who created beautiful buildings across the world, we've got a great show today. Joining us first is Adam Štěch, author of the new book Modern Architecture and Interiors , an atlas of more than one thousand Modernist architectural masterpieces;  next a true master, architect Victor Lundy, along with Lu...

Way before there was an internet, the way people learned about buildings outside of their city was in architecture magazines. Initially in black and white, which still has a certain allure, and later in color, magazines such as Architectural Record, Progressive Architecture, Art and Architecture, Architecture Forum, House and Home, and Architecture Plus chronicled new construction.  All of these p...

We love visiting great architecture and Modernist architecture does get visited – a lot – but nothing compares to the number of people who enjoy it through photography.  Especially this last year, when we've all been hunkered down awaiting vaccinations, we're reading and streaming visions of amazing homes, offices, and urban planning.  Join us today is Wayne Thom, a photographer famous for capturi...

Researching Modernist architecture hasn't always been easy, particularly before the internet, if anyone remembers back that far. Before our phones were full of Cardi B, Tik Tok, and $32 million inheritance offers, pending a $1200 processing fee, of course, researching Modernism meant spending time in real life deep in a major library. Fortunately, the web brings incredible research resources and t...

2020 was the fourth year USModernist Radio has been part of the New York Architecture and Design Film Festival, if by festival you mean online and by New York you mean anywhere on earth. Every fall, the authors, producers, experts, stars, and creators gather to premiere their latest architecture and design documentaries.  Today we talk with Rikke Selin Fokdal  and Kaspar Astrup Schröder, producers...

Everybody's got some niche they are into, right?  There are cat people, NASCAR people, golfing people, escape room people, and even after 55 years, Star Trek people. Today we welcome leaders in two special niches of Modernism, Beth Lennon, aka Mod Betty, of Retro Roadmap, and Howard and Gaby Morris of GreyScape, a London website dedicated to Brutalism, Modernism, and Constructivist design. Later o...

Whenever our friends the Classicists want to troll Modernism, they claim it's Communist-inspired and therefore no good. Since we have never known any building to determine economic policy, joining us are two people who dive deep into this "concrete" issue in the former Eastern Bloc: Haruna Honcoop, director of the film Built to Last: Relics of Communist Era Architecture, and Marie Kordovska, grand...

Harriet Pattison met renowned architect Louis Kahn in 1953 at Yale, but the real sparks flew years later in Philadelphia where she and Lou Kahn had a romantic relationship and a son, Nathaniel. It was, um, complicated. Pattison is an accomplished landscape architect, working in the Vermont office of the famous Dan Kiley and studied landscape architecture under Ian McHarg at the University of Penns...

It's one thing when neighbors don't like that butterfly mother in law shed in your backyard.  It's another when thousands of people in a city are without housing and neighborhoods don't want them anywhere close.  Over the decades, architecture has proclaimed the solution to this and other social problems can be solved through design, but as Dr. Phil might ask, "how'd that work out?"  Not so well,...

Well-known Modernist architects came to fame in a time before computers, a time where getting published in magazines was the mid-century equivalent of going viral.  Even if an architect lived in a large metro such as Los Angeles, world of mouth and house tours wouldn't get you the big commissions.  Blowing up meant having photos of your work in major publications of the era. To get those photos, y...

If you're a longtime listener, you know we have a special place in our hearts for Palm Springs, the mecca of Modernism, the home of the international film festival, the bedroom for concerts in Indio, and the cruising town that Sonny Bono cleaned up in the late 1980's before he ran for Governor.  It's our home away from home, but even Paris has reinvent itself from time to time.  Today's guests are...

This is the fourth year USModernist Radio has been part of the New York Architecture and Design Film Festival, if by festival you mean online and by New York you mean anywhere on earth.  Every fall, the authors, producers, experts, stars, and creators gather to premiere their latest architecture and design documentaries, and this year because of COVID Executive Director Kyle Bergman completely re-...

Architect Charles Dubois was famous for designing houses in California which earned the nickname Swiss Miss.  Designer Leonora Mahle takes us inside.  Later on, for something completely different, we'll visit with Lady Carnarvon, the owner of Downton Abbey, aka Highclere Castle.  Set on 5000 acres, it's the most famous house in Britain, except perhaps for an adorable little London starter home, by...

Like the Supremes, or Destiny's Child, today's guests have been rocking with the greatest hits of Modernist design for decades as the daughters or granddaughters of its most iconic architects and designers, Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, and Harry Bertoia.  Carla Hartman, Susan Saarinen, and Celia Bertoia are the best of friends and speak around the country as the Daughters of Design. 

Before Bjarke Ingels, before Tom Kundig, before Charlie Gwathmey, even before Richard Neutra, two brothers rocked the architecture scene in southern California in the early 1900's. Funded by the family behind Ivory Soap, Proctor and Gamble's first product, Charles and Henry Greene perfected the modern bungalow in Pasadena and influenced a giant in Modernist architecture, Harwell Hamilton Harris. ...