USModernist Radio - Architecture You Love

In this our next to last show from Modernism Week 2024, George talks with San Francisco concrete designer and architect Fu Tung Cheng, and later Marisa Mulder + Jim Burns + Brooke Babcock on composer and arranger Jimmy Van Huesen, who with Frank Sinatra as his muse carried the great American songbook to new heights in the 1950's and 1960's.  

When the internet came along, many industries changed forever, and one of them was the auction business.  Remember how exciting eBay was when everything was up for bid?  Traditional auction houses had to move quickly to adapt, and the opportunities of moving from a local to a regional or national or international market through the internet were immense.  One auction firm which has made a wildly s...

If there's one thing architecture fans love as much as tours and parties, it's architecture documentaries, and we've been covering dozens of those over the years.  Recorded at Modernism Week 2024, George talks with author and Emmy-winning filmmaker Jake Gorst on his new film New England Modernism.  Following that, a chat with Kirk Brown of DesignOnScreen, who funded many of Gorst's films about Pal...

Oh California, where the sun is warm.  Where the winds from Santa Ana make you feel like you belong.  California, wherever you may roam.  California keeps calling you home.  Those words from the 1978 movie If Ever I see You Again, a tribute to California. Are you pining to live in the Golden State?  Joining us are today are well-known California architects Leo Marmol, Wally Cunningham, Monika Hafe...

We've had many shows on the great midcentury architects of Palm Springs, people like Chambers, Clark, Cody, Frey, Krisel, Sackley, Wexler, White, Williams, and the last man standing, Hugh Kaptur.  But that was the 20 th  century, and we're in the 21 st .  In fact, we're pretty near mid-century in the 21 st , so today, you'll hear from two of today's Palm Springs architects, Michael Kiner and Mark...

Michael Kimmelman is the architecture critic for the New York Times. He writes on design, housing and homelessness, neighborhood development, cities, the environment,  and civil society. Then it's a delightful visit with returning musical guest Monika Ryan.

Kirsten Reoch is the new executive director of Philip Johnson's Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut. Then, take a ride down memory lane with Marina Coates, creator of the YouTube series Behind the Scenes, featuring tours of your favorite TV and movie houses.  Later on, musical guest Andrea Carter.

Designed by Richard Meier, with project architect Tod Williams, the 1973 Douglas House is a towering white residence built on a steep, conifer-covered slope overlooking Lake Michigan.  In 2007, retired Proctor & Gamble executives Mike McCarthy and Marcia Myers became the fourth owners and embarked on its second restoration, doing a deep dive to bring it back to life.

Today, we'll talk to three people who live in Palm Springs: the folks who work to document, share, and safeguard Palm Springs' heritage – and gladly share their stories. First, expert tour guides John Stark and Trevor O'Donnell. Later on, the President of the Palm Springs Plaza Theatre Foundation, JR Roberts, working to bring back the theatre to its full glory.  

In the Modernist kitchen today, we've got a full course meal, starting with architect and author Scott Specht, architecture photographer Ste Murray, and wrapping up for dessert, the always delightful hosts of the podcast Bad Architecture, Sara Tietje-Mietz and Erin Kennealy.

Let's talk art, maybe one of the paintings you could buy from today's guests.  The height of Modernist architecture was around 1962 but those butterfly roofs, dressing up for martini parties, sculpted tailfins, and even tiki décor have never been more popular.  Artists Danny Heller and Josh Agle, aka Shag, each brilliantly capture that midcentury vibe that keeps us all inspired. Later on, returnin...

In 1966 the first episode of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek launched a franchise still going strong nearly 60 years later.  Star Trek adapted midcentury Modern furniture for set design, from the Bridge to the Conference Room to buildings on the planets they landed on. In a follow up to Where No Furniture Has Gone Before, where we interviewed Dan Chavkin and Brian McGuire on their book Star Trek: Des...

Ah, Aspen.  The land of clean air, brisk skiing, pensive thinktanks, and enormous wealth.  Nestled in the gorgeous mountains of Colorado, you might not know that Aspen was influenced by Modernism and has special connections to the Bauhaus in Germany.  Today you'll hear from Lissa Ballinger, acting director of the Aspen Institute, about the Bauhaus-Aspen connection, and then it's photographer Isaac...

Welcome to USModernist Radio, where we talk and laugh with people who enjoy, own, create, dream about, preserve, love, and hate Modernist architecture, the most exciting and controversial buildings in the world. It's especially exciting in New York City, which punches way above its weight in architecture and architects, and today we'll talk with three from that city, Peter Eisenman, Esther Sperber...

Palm Springs and Los Angeles have thousands of Modernist houses, but there are many towns with their own midcentury architectural heritage. From Modernism Week 2024, we talk with David Coffey about Bakersfield CA; Palm Desert CA native and architectural researcher Luke Leuschner, then Peter McMahon with Cape Cod Modern House Trust, for an update on saving Marcel Breuer's Cape Cod house.

There are lots of famous people named Gordon, people like chef Gordon Ramsay, actress Ruth Gordon, musician Gordon Lightfoot, and even Sting, whose real name is Gordon Sumner.  Joining us are today are two Modernist Gordons, author Alistair Gordon and Chicago preservationist Barbara Gordon. Later, jazz with North Carolina's own Kate McGarry. 

Way back in 1987, New York Institute of Technology architects Michael Schwarting and Frances Campani saved the 1931 Aluminaire House from destruction, and rebuilt it.  Then they had to take it apart.  Now nearly 40 years later, Aluminaire House reached it's final resting place at the Palm Springs Art Museum, visible today on the museum grounds.  Recorded poolside at Modernism Week,  you will hear...

Joining the show are three documentary filmmakers bravely capturing architects and architecture on film.  Making these movies is an incredible labor of love; it takes a tremendous amount of work and time, often years, you're fundraising continually, production is expensive, even when done on the cheap, and the financial reward at the end of all that, well, let's say you could do better working a c...

From the great postwar transatlantic liners to the sleek Scandinavian cruise ships of the 1970s, to Captain Stuebing and the Love Boat, ships and private yachts are also design showcases that featured edgy, trendsetting architecture. Maritime historian and art dealer Peter Knego and yacht owner Brian Biggott joins George poolside at Modernism Week to talk about nautical Modernism. Later on, from t...

In May of 1950, a young man attended a packed lecture by Frank Lloyd Wright in the then-new Reynolds Coliseum at NC State in Raleigh NC.  It was the largest architecture lecture ever in North Carolina.  He was also witness to the construction of the 1954 Catalano House, sadly destroyed in 2001. Today George talks with architect Truman Newberry, now in his 90's.  And later on, music with the charmi...

Recorded poolside at the Hotel Skylark during Modernism Week in Palm Springs, prolific architect and architectural historian Alan Hess talks about California architect Irving Gill, who was doing Modernism way back in 1905; plus Erin Ellwood, daughter of Craig Ellwood, on her father's singular legacy. Later, back in the studio, music with the enchanting Lucy Woodward. 

In another of our wildly popular Children of Genius shows, we're honored to talk with furniture designer Mira Nakashima, who carries on the tradition of her father, George Nakashima, and Peg Risom Bull, daughter of Danish furniture designer Jens Risom. 

An exhibition last fall on the late architect Myron Goldfinger opened and USModernist was there moderating the panel's remembrances. Circle Square Triangle: The Architecture of Myron Goldfinger, closed at the end of 2023 but will be touring other locations in 2024. Myron Goldfinger's signature Modernist houses of the Hamptons and Westchester in New York include the wild party house featured in The...

Creating affordable, transportable, innovative prefab houses has been the holy grail of architecture for 100 years, and if you were reading DWELL in the early 2000's, you couldn't miss their coverage of the latest adventurers on that quest.  Joining us today is one of the most successful, Michelle Kaufmann, now with Google.  Later on George travels to Stamford CT to talk with Modernist architect R...

Ohio native Dan Duckham moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1956 after graduating in architecture from Miami University of Ohio. Three years later in 1962 he formed his own firm and over the last seven decades, Dan Duckham completed more than 500 projects, including many Modernist houses.  Dan Duckham is one of the last living masters of Florida modern, and joining him is architect and author Randolph Hen...