USModernist Radio - Architecture You Love

On this episode, Ellen Mirro and Howard Miller of Studio TJP; then Dominic Bradbury, author of a new book on the style we all love to love, Nordic modernism.  Next Andy Cohen: a magician, business strategist, and NYU professor who argues that architects and illusionists are in exactly the same business. Last to bat, musical guest, Steve Holt, a Montreal jazz pianist who gave up Wall Street and won...

Will Bruder is a celebrated architect that never went to architecture school, but he became one of the most respected architects in America through apprenticing to Paolo Soleri and Gunnar Birkerts.  Alex Josephson quit London's most prestigious architecture program mid-degree and struck out on his own. Greg Case isn't an architect at all — he's an ad guy who out-researched the professionals and re...

On today's episode, international architect Patrik Schumacher, CEO of Zaha Hadid Architects;  Elias Tabache shares beautifully shot house videos of his Open Space platform, and later, musical guest Karrin Allyson.  

We're revisiting conversations with two special guests who have passed away since these interviews were recorded — architect Paul Rudolph's partner Ernst Wagner and Frank Lloyd Wright's grandson, architect Eric Lloyd Wright.  Ernst Wagner died in 2024 at 81. A Swiss exchange student who came to New York in 1970, he met architect Paul Rudolph and the two became lifelong partners both in architectur...

In another of our wildly popular series, Children of Genius, we talk with family of famous architects, starting with Jennifer Lapidus, granddaughter of Morris Lapidus who reshaped Miami with hotels like the Fontainebleau. Next, Jenny Jacks Shreve, daughter of Arkansas architect Ernie Jacks, who worked on the Kennedy Center with Edward Durell Stone and the Case Study Houses with Craig Ellwood.  Lat...

Acclaimed architect Tom Phifer builds around light, with three decades designing buildings that make walls feel invisible.  Author Alastair Gordon has written more than 28 books and knows all the midcentury Modern houses in the Hamptons that shaped American architecture.  Jeanie Bryson spent decades as a jazz vocalist, sharing stages with Grover Washington Jr., Kenny Burrell, and Etta Jones.  Havi...

Elizabeth Gordon was editor-in-chief of House Beautiful.  In April 1953 she published an influential and controversial editorial that rocked the architecture world, presenting Modernism as uncomfortable, impractical, and like communism a threat to American cultural values. We'll talk with author Monica Penick, author of the definitive book on Gordon, 2001's Tastemaker.  Next up, Alison Fisher just...

On this special edition of USModernist taped live earlier this year at the Onera Foundation in New Canaan CT,  we explore diplomacy through Modernist architecture with three guests: Dublin architect Cormac Murray gives a talk on John Johansen's US Embassy in Dublin; legendary photographer Norman McGrath, who shot that building soon after it opened, and architect Christen Johansen, son of John Joha...

New York architect Tom Gluck of GLUCKplus, son of architect Peter Gluck, takes us behind the scenes of projects from prefab high-rises in Manhattan to his Tower House in upstate New York. Nick Ferrell brings the history of Modernist lighting design in Modeline of California: Pioneer of Modern Lighting , with lamps that have inspired designers for decades. And freshly-minted Pulitzer prize winner M...

In Bakersfield CA, David Coffey preserves two houses one by Neutra, and one by Wright, but today we talk about his passion, Modernism in Uruguay.  In Los Angeles, Cindy Olnick stewards the Neutra Institute. Later on, jazz duo Lenore Raphael and Chris Hodgkins reunite for their joyful new album, Pennies From Heaven. 

We're talking about North Carolina, our home state.  Architect Phil Szostak has shaped some of the state's most prominent cultural spaces and houses.  Architect Ben Taylor's long career starting in the 1950's has left a lasting mark across North Carolina. Later, it's straight out of Birdland with musical guests Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks. 

Imagine doing Modernist preservation – in a war zone.  Dmytro Soloviov documents Ukraine's modernist architecture.  Ben Wever cares for one of America's modernist treasures, the Miller House in Columbus, Indiana. Hallie Swenson uncovers the stories of San Diego Modernism, and architect Robert Stone brings new desert Modernism to life. 

We dug into the podcast vault for one of the most successful and admired architects in the world, Bjarke Ingels of BIG. Later, we swoon over jazz vocalist Halie Loren.

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...