USModernist Radio - Architecture You Love

Recorded at New York's Architecture and Design Film Festival, George talks with Jason Cohn and returning podcast guest Fred Noyes talking Modernism Inc, a documentary about Eliot Noyes. We'll also visit with another filmmaker from the festival, Hans Christian Post, who has a few problems with idyllic Copenhagen.  And later on, music with North Carolina's legendary bandleader, trumpeter Jim Ketch. 

There's a new edition out of the popular book Midcentury Houses Today, and we'll have on co-author and architectural photographer Michael Biondo.  Next up, someone we admire for keeping Modernist houses on the radar in Los Angeles, filmmaker Russell Brown,  founder of FORT LA, aka Friends of Residential Treasures. Later on, music from Durham's Sharp 9 Jazz club with pianist Lenore Raphael and guit...

Two authors of new books:  Todd Cronan, with the book Nothing Permanent: Modern Architecture in California; and, don't throw any stones, it's Andrew Heid, with the book Glass Houses.  Later on, George and Tom welcome musical guest Claudia Acuna. 

Have you seen that photo of the two gorgeous glamourous blondes, sitting in loungers, sipping drinks by the pool of a Richard Neutra house in Palm springs?  That iconic photo, called Poolside Gossip, was taken over 50 years ago by Slim Aarons.  Joining us Shawn Waldron, author of a new book on Slim Aarons, and one of the two women in that photo, the Queen of Palm Springs Nelda Linsk. Later on, mus...

We gear up 2024 with conversations with Damien Lipp and Stephanie Mauro on tiny houses in Iceland; Long Beach Architecture Week's Sal Flores; a Modernist renovation in Altadena CA with Goli Karimi, and later a wonderful musical guest, Nicole Zuraitis.

In October, USModernist was at the Palm Springs Modernism Show and visited with hundreds of wonderful fans from around the country. We are going to be in Palm Springs again in February for Modernism Week, and in preparation, George spoke with today's guests, architectural archivist Frank Lopez of Sunnylands, the Palm Springs Modernism Show's Rosemary Krieger, artist Christopher Georgesco, Destinat...

Returning podcast guest Takashi Yanai is a partner at Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects where he is director of both the Los Angeles and San Francisco residential studios. Returning podcast guest Mina Chow is and architect and Principal of mc2 Spaces, a multimedia company. She is also an architecture professor at USC. Mina and Takashi talk about the contributions of Asian-American architects, m...

Happy 2024!  We open up the new year with another great episode in our continuing series Children of Genius.  Francesca Breuer Wallace gives her first interview - ever - on her father Marcel Breuer ; and later it's the grandson of Aino and Alvar Aalto, Heikki Aalto-Alanen, with a new book on his grandparents. 

What better subject to talk about during the holidays than Modernist bliss?   Joining us is Charlotte  North Carolina  architect and author Toby Witte. And later,  not one but two holiday musical guests:  from his new Christmas album, Michael Sinatra, and bringing holiday cheer from Raleigh NC, Peter Lamb and the Wolves. 

In architecture up until the 1990's, it was raining men, and the few women architects had to work twice as hard to get the same recognition and the same pay, if they got either at all. That's slowly changing, thanks to pioneering leaders like today's guests.   Phyllis Bronfman Lambert is a Canadian architect, philanthropist, and member of the family that brought Seagrams spirits to fame in the 20...

Be careful about giving a coffee table book to your architecture-lovin' spouse for Christmas, because one day, you might have a new Modernist house by a famous architect - plus a railroad - on your property.  Joining us is Seattle brand designer Lou Maxon and his long strange journey to build a Tom Kundig house with a unique Kundig gizmo on rails. Later on, returning podcast guest Peter McMahon of...

As our 23 loyal listeners know, we're solid fans of Bjarke Ingels and his wildly successful design practice Bjarke Ingels Group spanning London, Copenhagen, New York, and China.  With projects like the combination incinerator and ski slope in Copenhagen, and Via 57, One Hudson, the Spiral, and the BIG U flood protection barrier wrapping around most of Manhattan, the firm continues to do amazing pr...

The architects of midcentury houses in the 1950's and 1960's are all retired now, some for many years.  It's a true privilege as fans from a later generation to sit down with these men and women and hear their stories.  Joining us today is celebrated architect Barbara Neski of New York City, now in her 90's, famed for award-winning Modernist houses in the Hamptons.  Later, music with the charming...

Every now and then, we run into A-students who have become so accomplished in the multiple worlds of art, architecture, preservation, business, and common sense, that it's a shame not to share those conversations.  Joining us today is Christy MacLear, the founder of Artist Ventures.  She's been CEO for Superblue, a thrilling immersive experience in Miami, which you should put on your travel list;...

In our ongoing series Children of Genius, we'll talk to John Barnes, son of New York Modernist architect Edward Larrabee Barnes, and Ainsley Gores Gilligan, daughter of Connecticut architect and one of the Harvard Five, Landis Gores.  They join our past interviews with family of well-known architects such as Er ic and Susan Saarinen, children of Eero; Raymond and Dion Neutra, children of Richard; ...

George sneaks into the studio to make a special announcement.

Few large art museums in the world are dedicated to architecture as well as art, and joining us is Adam Lerner, the CEO of one of those, the Palm Springs Art Museum.  A few blocks away, that museum owns another museum, the Palm Springs Architecture and Design Museum, location of an upcoming January exhibition on architect Albert Frey, the patron saint of Modernist design in Palm Springs.  Curating...

Back in the 1980's, architect Richard Meier got a commission for a series of buildings in Los Angeles.  The Getty Foundation, sourced from the prestigious family of oil fame, wanted a huge new complex on land they owned off the 405.  This would turn out to be one of the largest private commissions in the world at the time, costing about 1.3 billion by the time it opened in the 1990's.  Of course,...

The Modernist architecture we love is exciting, edgy, sometime inexplicable, often brilliant.  Modernism has been around a long time, yet there's also been a movement beyond  Neutra and Corbusier and Gropius and Breuer and Mies, that's frequently misunderstood.  We're talking about organic architecture, houses that make Neutra look downright classical. Organic architects are a fiercely independent...

Returning podcast guest Stewart Hicks is best-known for his wildly popular YouTube video series Architecture with Stewart, and in his spare time, he's Associate Dean at the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago.  Every few weeks, you'll find a new YouTube release helping the general public, which is us, on topics as varied as the desperation of contemporary mall architect...

What modernist architect doesn't want a museum commission? Along with airports and hotels, or huge corporate campuses for  tech bros, museums are the most lucrative and high-profile projects an architect can get.  Budgets are big, backers are rich, publicity is guaranteed, and most of the time clients want the architect to fully self-express their wildest plans. It's a good deal for the museum, to...

Melodie Yashar is VP for building design and performance at ICON, a firm devoted to developing 3D construction. Their neighborhood of attractive, affortable 3D-printed houses, designed by the Bjarke Ingels Group, went on sale in Austin TX this past June.  Later on, we talk with German director Jan Schmidt-Garre whose latest film is The Promise: Architect BV Doshi, an intimate portrait of the late...

Palm Springs has seen its share of glamour, from the Hollywood celebrities who made the place their playground last century to the musicians and entertainers who kept the party going. Today we'll hear from Will Friedwald on the jazz trio The Poll Winners; Courtney Newman on the classic entertainers who flocked to Palm springs; and Susan Claassen, who has brought legendary Hollywood costume designe...

Renovations on Modernist buildings can be particularly tricky. Nick Martin's firm recently remodeled Charles Gwathmey's Tolan House in the Hamptons.  Matt Loader and Iain King of Loader Monteith lead Modernist preservation projects including the Glasgow School of Art Mackintosh Building, the Jenners Building redevelopment, and something definitely not Modernist, Rosslyn Chapel, a church made famou...

Modernism isn't just architecture; it also highlights the artists and artisans whose textiles, ceramics, furniture, and other objects bring modern spaces to life. Recorded at Modernism Week 2023, we'll hear from a gaggle of interesting guests:  Susan Brown, Alexa Griffith Winton, Leigh Wishner and Charlotte Von Hardenburgh on textile artist Dorothy Liebes; Annalisa Capurro and Paul Ortega on the S...