USModernist Radio - Architecture You Love

Today you'll meet two CEO's of HOK, one of the most successful architecture firms in the world, past CEO Patrick MacLeamy and current CEO Bill Hellmuth .  Every architecture student knows HOK, and it's one of the largest design firms in the US with 1800 team members.  Since 1955, HOK has designed hundreds of major projects like the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in DC, Apple's first maj...

Nowhere in the world celebrates Modernism better than Palm Springs, California.  Every February, they have a huge architecture and design festival called Modernism Week which actually lasts 11 days.  Today in the first of two shows about architecture-related movies taped at Modernism Week, host George Smart talks with filmmakers Jake and Tracey Gorst of Frey Part 2: The Architectural Interpreter,...

Today on USModernist Radio it's a full slate of great guests:  art collector, model collector, race car driver, softball player, and architect Ronnette Riley, project lead for the Lipstick Building in New York designed by Philip Johnson . Later on, Virginia Faust talks about the venerable Lustron, the house of the future that didn't make it, plus special musical guest Leonardo with the world's onl...

Other than Frank Sinatra, there are few people who are so tightly woven into the spirit of mid-century culture than 1950's Hollywood star Marilyn Monroe . Sometime later this year, plans call for a nearly 30 foot tall statue of her in the famous blowing white dress to return to Palm Springs as a permanent home.  In her day, Marilyn was as big as any celebrity you could name.  She was involved with...

In a mid-century world way before Instagram, people kept up with the latest buildings primarily through architecture magazines.  Although a few titles like Architecture Record are still going, there were many exceptional publications that in their heyday from 1945-1970 reached millions of readers across the US and the World. Today we welcome John Morris Dixon , the last editor of one of those grea...

Craig Ellwood   was one of the most exciting people in American architecture. He took Los Angeles by storm and no one since has fully captured his personal style or his incredible story - but that's on the way.   Although he took structural engineering courses at UCLA, Ellwood was not a licensed architect, but that did not matter to him or to his clients. Ellwood was a true design genius. Ellwood...

Skidmore Owings and Merrill, which sounds like a law firm your uncle Mitch might work at, created international airports, stunningly tall skyscrapers, universities, flagship museums, and landmark corporate headquarters since the 1930's. In its heyday it was the Amazon of design firms, one of the largest in the world, with projects such as the 1973 Sears/Willis Tower in Chicago, the 2010 Burj Khali...

Nowhere in the world celebrates Modernism better than Palm Springs, California.  Every February, they have a huge architecture and design festival called Modernism Week, which actually lasts 11 days. This was the fifth year USModernist has been at Modernism Week, talking poolside at the USModernist Compound, aka the hip Hotel Skylark, with nearly all the keynote speakers, authors, and special gues...

In a world before the internet, World's Fairs were the killer app of the 19 th and most of the 20 th centuries.  Countries would assemble at a central place for about 6 months and build pavilions, each sharing their nation's technology, culture, and national sources of pride, symbols, heroes, and achievements.  If you've ever been to Epcot at Disney World, you get the idea.  There were two World's...

Each fall, there's a cool art and design gathering called WestEdge Design Fair in Santa Monica.  It's held in the Barker Hanger, an enormous space at the Santa Monica airport.  This year, USModernist's George Smart moderated two panels with some of the most well-known designers from around America and the UK. What you're about to hear is one of those panels, Epic Spaces and Favorite Places, with g...

From London to Tokyo to Dubai, the skyscraper is a part of every modern city, but no city has done it better, or longer, than New York. Starting in the 1920's, the booming economy, use of steel, and advanced engineering took skyscrapers into reality for the first time.  Hey, who wakes up one day and says "Hey, I want to create a museum"?  Carol Willis does.  In 1996, she founded and still runs the...

Host George Smart cashed in a few frequent flyer miles to report from New York City, doing a walk and talk around the innovatively designed COOKFOX architecture office with project leader Bethany Borel .  Later on George visits author Anthony Alofsin , whose new book Wright and New York : the Making of America's Architect explores Frank Lloyd Wright's years in the Big Apple. 

What could be better than to make a living writing about Modernist architecture?  Today on the show all the way from the UK, its author Dominic Bradbury , author of the new book Atlas of Mid-Century Modern Houses.  Bradbury is a writer and freelance journalist specializing in architecture, design, real estate, and travel, writing over 20 over twenty books, at least one of which you have on your co...

Sometimes the controversy about a building, particularly about a huge museum or government project, starts way before it opens or even before a Mayor, or a Governor, a Prime Minister, or even a Kardashian moves the first shovel of dirt. Today we welcome Susanna Sirefman , founder and president of Dovetail Design Strategists, an architect selection firm specializing in design competitions.  Also wi...

Alysa Nahmias is an award-winning filmmaker and founder of the Los Angeles-based production company Ajna Films. Her directorial debut feature, Unfinished Spaces, co-directed with Benjamin Murray , won a 2012 Spirit Award, numerous festival prizes, and is in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.  In The New Bauhaus, the film's narrative weaves original interviews with arch...

Charles Gwathmey was a native of North Carolina and got interested in architecture at an early age. Charlie, as he was known, studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and at Yale University under Paul Rudolph , then went into partnership with Richard Henderson and later Robert Siegel .  Over a career spanning five decades, Charlie and Bob designed some of the country's most iconic Mo...

Fire up the car or start booking plane tickets, as today we're talking about two amazing Modernist house museums you'll definitely want to visit, one in New York City, and one in Los Angeles, with guest Executive Directors: Kelvin Dickinson of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation and the Modulightor Building in New York, last home of architect Paul Rudolph ; and Lucia Dewey Atwood of the Charles a...

This is the third year USModernist Radio has been part of the Architecture and Design Film Festival in New York. Every fall, the stars, producers, and creators gather to premiere their latest documentaries.  ADFF Executive Director Kyle Bergman curates visually wonderful, thought-provoking, and faithfully documented films that capture the brilliance of architects, artists, and significant building...

In this bonus show, George gets locked out of Tom's studio but still manages to record and edit an interview with PJ Letofsky, producer of the documentary Neutra:  Survival Through Design.  Featuring historian Barbara Lamprecht, son Raymond Neutra, son Dion Neutra who just passed away, Norman Foster, Moshe Safdie, and of course -- Alan Hess.  Neutra's houses are still highly prized 50 to 90 years...

Amy Walton is from Texas, where she spent 15 years managing nonprofits like the North Texas Food Bank and the Jewish Family Service. Last year, she launched modTEXAS, an initiative to draw attention to Texas modernism and celebrate the people and institutions working to preserve it. Building a coalition of over a dozen nonprofits using social media, modTEXANS have shared thousands of images of mid...

Welcome to 2020!  In our ongoing quest to seek out other architecture podcasts, we've talked with hosts such as Frances Anderton, Donna Sink, Steve Chung, Josh Cooperman, David+Marina, and Debbie Millman .  Today we talk with Bob Borson , creator of the most visited privately-maintained architectural blog in the world, Life of an Architect , which as of two years ago is also a podcast. We first en...

Shhh!  George broke into Tom's studio late at night to bring you two bonus interviews from 2019. Happy new year!

Host George Smart met today's guests at a LA party USModernist Radio threw last year at Neutra's Lovell House.  Lyra Kilston is a writer and editor focused on architecture, design, art, urbanism, with publication in The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Los Angeles Times, Next City, Artforum, Wired, TIME, Art in America, and ICON. She is an editor for the Getty Museum, a consulting editor for Hyper...

Ron Friedman graduated in architecture from Carnegie Mellon University. After working for a few years as an architect, he came to his senses and started writing and performing stand-up comedy.  He was spotted by Dean Martin and Danny Kaye which launched a career writing for countless TV and variety shows, over 700 hours of beloved prime-time TV that you know and probably love, including The Andy G...

Born in Boston, architect Eliot Noyes graduated Harvard University. After working for Boston's Coolidge Shepley Bulfinch & Abbott, he left to work for Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer. Awarded a Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship, he toured the US visiting Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater and Taliesin; Eliel Saarinen's Cranbrook Academy of Art; and Richard Neutra houses.  After returning briefly to...