USModernist Radio - Architecture You Love

Today's new mega-transportation centers are sweeping complexes for airports and subways to move millions of people.  They are huge canvasses for architects like today's guest, Scottish architect John McAslan, who's working on the hot mess that is Penn Station.  Later we'll explore the Toast of Illinois, Champaign, with Phillip Kalantzis-Cope, author of Mid-Continent Modern and one of Champaign's a...

Charles Moore, the architect of California's famous Sea Ranch, was one of the chief proponents of postmodernism. His work brought a return to more ornamental detail, steep roofs, and shingles, among other classical features, and we'll learn more from Kevin Keim, Director of the Charles Moore Foundation.  Next, you've heard for a year about the destruction of Craig Ellwood's Zimmerman house in Los...

Paul Rudolph's buildings, built and unbuilt, continue to inspire clients, annoy critics, and gain fame, even though he died in the mid-90's.  These days, though, it's almost all smiles and admiration, and there's an important exhibition of Rudolph's work at the Metropolitan Museum in New York through March.  Year round on certain days, however, you can visit Rudolph's former office in New York, th...

The Bjarke Ingels Group completed the Spiral, a tower in Hudson Yards with tree-lined terraces going around the building, all the way up.  Today we'll talk with project architect, Dominyka Voelkle.  Later, you'll discover architect Carter Sparks through his number one fan and archivist, Justin Wood.  Then it's returning musical guest, jazz superstar and high school teacher, the delightful Canadian...

For decades, we've been reading about Lindal Cedar Homes in design magazines.  Now, under the leadership of third-generation President Christina Lindal they've branched out into compelling designs inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright.  And inside great houses like this, you're probably going to need good decorating advice, so we go to Montauk New York to talk with author and interior designer Lauren Rot...

It's our annual Christmas show, and In the studio we have a partner in one of North Carolina's hottest firms, architect Adam Sebastian. We talk with Quinn Garvey, our special agent inside the amazing Craig Ellwood house that Chris Pratt tore down in early 2024, and later, jazz with Angela Bingham.

Celebrities aren't typically huge fans of Modernist architecture. Most prefer a 1930's mansion or an Italianate villa. But there are a few, like Jennifer Aniston, Holland Taylor, Scott Caan, Kelly Lynch, Leonardo DiCaprio, and others who keep Modernist houses in the spotlight.  Today we'll talk with Alison Martino, producer, historian, and preservationist, the Godmother of Old Hollywood and Los An...

The town of Lancaster OH is famous as the birthplace of David Graf, best known as Sgt. Eugene Tackleberry in the Police Academy series.  Lancaster is also famous for … glassware, and their best-known creative rebel was Fran Taylor.  From 1939 to 1962, Taylor ran GayFad Studios, and 60+ years after her business closed, partners Jason and David Annecy have revived the brand, opened a store, and held...

We can't believe it, but USModernist Radio will be ten years old soon.  We'll have a special show number 400 featuring past guests and - you!  Are you a fan of the show?  Learned something useful?  Got a funny story?  Please contact George Smart george@usmodernist.org or 919.740.8407

From Australia, we talk with with architect and 2002 Pritkzer Prize winner Glenn Murcutt. From the UK, we've got architecture critic Rowan Moore, and wrapping up, the author of Modern Chinese Architecture: 180 Years, Nancy Steinhardt.

Rocking the California architecture scene for over 60 years, we'll talk with Malibu architect Ed Niles.  Then it's over 3000 miles and down 500 to Florida with tropical architect Ralph Choeff.  Later, one of the stars of the Purple Room in Palm Springs, musical guest Chris Bennett!

In late 2023, new owners of a classic George Matsumoto Modernist house in Raleigh NC took out a demolition permit. Usually, that's the end of the road for a Modernist house, but Melinda and Andy Knowles stepped up and persuaded those owners to delay demolition – so the couple could move the house seven miles across town, where it has been wonderfully restored on a new site next to their existing m...

We'll talk today about Texas and California, two of our most populous states that could not be more different , with Kathryn O'Rourke and Ben Koush, authors of  Home, Heat, Money, God: Texas and Modern Architecture ; and Michael Webb, author of  California Houses: Creativity in Context .

Talking architecture can be a little dense, wordy, and imponderable, especially for people who aren't architects but just love talking about, visiting, and being inspired by cool buildings.  Today we talk with two noted populists who make architecture understandable, architect and professor Christopher Wilson, and journalist and architourist Ken MacIntyre of modtraveler.com.  Later on, musical gue...

Landscape architects are the ninjas of the design world, silently orchestrating beauty around buildings while you're too busy staring at your phone. They decide whether that park bench is in the sun or shade, the exact curve of a sidewalk, and how to make an average building look extraordinary.  They're the ones who make sure your city doesn't feel like a concrete jungle and that your suburban spr...

In nearly every major city, housing the homeless is a major problem.  Since the defunding of residential mental health programs in Reagan era, the dramatic cost of housing, and other cutbacks in the welfare safety net, America created a huge population of people with problems who have nowhere to live except outside.  Especially in California, which has the most homeless citizens in America, everyo...

Where does the real work get done in Modernist preservation? State and local preservation groups show up at long, boring, and ridiculously bureaucratic public meetings, week after week, sometimes for years.  They get historic preservation tax credits passed in most states, and they monitor everything from development to the preservation easements we talk about frequently.  Joining us in the studio...

Today you'll hear from Miami architect and author Chad Oppenheim; from Long Beach architect Alan Pullman; from New Canaan author David Peterson, and later we swoon again with returning musical guest Halie Loren singing from her new album. 

Interviewing the children of mid-century architects has been one the best parts of producing USModernist Radio. We've had the pleasure of talking to Hicks Stone, son of Edward Durell Stone; John Barnes, son of Edward Larrabee Barnes, Ainsley Gores Gilligan, daughter of Landis; Fred Noyes, son of Eliot; Eric and Susan Saarinen, children of Eero; Raymond and Dion Neutra, children of Richard;  France...

Being a Black architect in the white-male-dominated 20th century was tough.  You were paid less, worked harder, and rarely got any credit.  That is, if you could get hired at all. For example, by 1950 there were only two Black architects registered in North Carolina, both male. By 1980 the number was only 65 out of 1909. Even by 1993, Black architects made up only 7.5% nationally.  Today we'll hea...

The 2024 Architecture and Design Film Festival, or ADFF, starts up next week in New York.  This long-running series is led by returning podcast guest Kyle Bergman, who founded the ADFF in New York in 2008 and hosts versions all over the world.  ADFF seeks out films with impassioned, human stories that appeal to both architects and the general design-loving public.  Today we'll talk with filmmakers...

For every 3 or 4 Modernist buildings out there, there is likely one amazing unbuilt building with plans sitting in a drawer or a hard drive somewhere.  Exploring the wonderful world of the imagined but not realized, joining us are the authors of Never Built Los Angeles, Never Built New York, and the new book, the Atlas of Never Built Architecture, Sam Lubell and Greg Goldin. Later, music with Chic...

Today we're talking about Modernist havens San Diego and La Jolla with midcentury author and historian Keith York; plus Joan Gand and Lauren Lockhart of the La Jolla Historical Society on their upcoming Modernist tour, of which USModernist is a sponsor.  Later on, jazz with Lisa Veronica Wood and the Sidecar Social Club.

It's a sad day in the studio, because this is the last Modernism Week show of 2024.  We've brought you 11 wonderful episodes from our annual pilgrimage, and today wraps up the series with returning guests mid-century historian Charles Phoenix; Natascha Drabbe of iconichouses.org; traveling all the way from Canberra, Australia, Phillip Jones the Martini Whisperer; and Lautner homeowner Andrew Votte...

Today we're talking about an architecture TV series spanning the globe and a new design documentary.  Joining us is ByDesign's Mike Chapman and IBM archivist Jamie Martin, who is featured in the new documentary Modernism Inc .  Later, musical guest Paget Moren.