USModernist Radio - Architecture You Love

In 1946, Carl Strandland asked for $15 million worth of emergency loans to build small houses for GIs returning from WWII. Strandland was not an architect, but his idea that metal neighborhoods could be prefabricated and swiftly built was persuasive, and Lustron prefab house was born. To manufacture the ten tons of steel that went into each two-bedroom Lustron, Strandland bought a 25-acre factory...

As more and more midcentury buildings get destroyed, we have to rely on midcentury photography collections as a window into the past and as inspiration for the future. Today we'll talk to Ethan Wayne, son of actor John Wayne, Laurie Kratochvil, and Amy Shepherd about the John Hamilton Collection, a priceless trove of photographs from Hollywood's golden age.  After that, paint company Dunn-Edwards'...

Architectural historian Owen Hopkins has written or edited 16 books on architecture and his stories have appeared in  Architectural Design, Dezeen,  the  Independent,  and  Blueprint , among many others. A graduate of the Courtauld Institute in London, Owen has served as architectural program curator at the Royal Academy of Arts, senior curator at Sir John Soane's Museum, and now the director of N...

Vishaan Chakrabarti is the Founder and Creative Director of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism where he leads the firm's growing global portfolio of cultural, institutional, and public projects. His latest book is A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America; his major argument is that well-designed cities have the capacity to address some of our gravest social ills, including environ...

What would happen if you threw the letters of the alphabet in a hat, drew out two at random, then asked people with those initials on a podcast?  Today we find out, and just like Sesame Street, today's show is brought to you by the letters W and G.  We could have chosen from musician Woody Guthrie, grandpa on the Waltons Will Geer (George: loved that guy), one of the brothers Grimm, Wilhelm, and o...

Architects Albert Frey and Lawrence Kocher designed the Aluminaire House in 1931 for New York's Allied Arts and Industries Exhibition. Tens of thousands of people went through this experimental house design. Now, over 90 years later, Aluminaire has been sitting in a tractor trailer, boxed up, at the Palm Springs Museum of Art. Joining George is Leo Marmol of the legendary LA firm Marmol Radziner....

If you're considering buying a midcentury Modern house, you're surely going to need some repairs, maybe as much as a full renovation.  Mostly likely you're not in construction or architecture, so you're gonna need help and you really don't want to screw it up.  The good news is that there are expert builders around the country who specialize in Modernist houses, old and new, and today we've got th...

You know when you go to an impressive Modernist building, part of what's impressive is more than just the structure.  The landscape all around the building, from the sidewalks to the signage to the plants to how the sun hits everything just right – this is the stuff that the general public often takes for granted.  But it doesn't happen by accident, and it's not typically part done by the building...

Joining us here in the studio is designer and builder Alicia Hylton-Daniel, owner of the Durham North Carolina firm Hylton Daniel.  Later on, from Romania, it's the creator of the wildly popular "of houses" blog, architect Daniel Munteanu. 

One of the most famous homes in Palm Springs is the Kaufmann House, designed by Richard Neutra.  It was recently the star of Don't Worry Darling, filmed right before it sold, and there's a rich history there.  Even Barry Manilow owned it at one point!   Adele Cygelman is the author of  Palm Springs Modern  and  Arthur Elrod: Desert Modern Design . Her recent research focused on Edgar Kaufmann's fi...

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.  Joining us today is one of foremost architectural historians in the world, professor, and former Museum of Modern Art architecture curator Barry Bergdoll, plus a special guest!  Later, mu...

We all love midcentury Modernism, but what about new Modernist houses? How much do you follow the past versus innovating for the future? After all, we are not the same culture and technology and building materials we were in the 1950's. And what about renovations? Today's show features homeowner Sean Gaston, who's working on a restoration project close to our hearts, a hyperbolic paraboloid house;...

Joining us is Robert Rubin, no not the guy who was secretary of the Treasury under Bill Clinton, although people do get them confused.  This Robert Rubin built one of the world's only Modernist golf clubhouses and will be transforming that golf course into a Modernist enclave. He also saved and restored a Pierre Chareau house in Paris, the famous Maison de Verre. Later, great jazz with musical gue...

More fun Modernist places most people don't know - explored from conversations at Modernism Week 2023  between George Smart, Tom Guild, and:  Simcha Schtull on the Elvis Honeymoon House, Melissa Riche and Dan Allen on Rancho Mirage, Dana Al-Marashi and TK Harvey on the United Arab Emirages; and the famous Isokon building in the UK with Magnus England and Leila DayBelge.

We're thrilled to talk with two of America's foremost architecture critics, recorded in New York City. Alexandra Lange is an award-winning architectural critic for Curbed.com and the author of several books on architecture and America's built environment. A graduate of NYU's Institute of Fine Arts and a former Loeb Fellow in the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, her most recent book is...

Today's show, recorded at Modernism Week 2023, is places.  With some great guests, we will explore Southridge in Palm Springs with architect Susan Secoy Jensen; Marfa, Texas with Dean Upe Peter Flueckiger; and the Rocky Mountains with author John Gendall. After that, music with returning podcast guest Laura Windley and her Mint Julep Jazz Band.

USModernist Radio started in 2015, one dark and stormy afternoon, and we celebrate episode 300 with a special guest architect. Devoted listeners know exactly who we're talking about, because in past shows, every time we say his name you hear a sound.  Today we welcome one of the most successful architects in the world, Bjarke Ingels of BIG. Later, we swoon over jazz vocalist Halie Loren.

Starting in the late 50's, the Hamptons was largely farmland, and people built small, intricate Modernist houses to get away from city life.  Today, with a new wave of huge houses and immense wealth controlling real estate, preservationists are focusing on both creating new modest Modernist houses and saving midcentury Modernist houses from the bulldozer.  David Sokol is the former managing editor...

Architect John Patrick Winberry is the founding principal of the Queens-based UP Studio, recently longlisted for Dezeen's architecture studio of the year award, and one of the firm's latest projects is featured on CBS's America: By Design. Later on, we meet a dynamic duo of moms and longtime friends who started flipping Modernist houses and repairing others for clients wanting to sell.  Hairpin Ho...

We've got a full roster of guests from Modernism Week 2023 in Palm Springs. Speaking on famous midcentury architects and designers, you'll hear from Jacques Caussin on Raymond Loewy, Lila Cohen on Herb Greene, Alan Hess on Googie architecture, and Michelangelo Sabatino and Maristella Casciato on Carlo Mollino.

Today, our world is New York City, where you'll hear conversations between George and former editor-in-chief of Architectural Record Cathleen McGuigan, architecture photographer and documentary filmmaker Bilyana Dimitrova, architect Adam Beaulieu of COOKFOX, and Common Edge editor Martin Pedersen.

Nowhere in the world celebrates Modernism better than Modernism Week in Palm Springs, California. Every February, they have a weeklong architecture and design festival, which actually lasts 11 days,  and USModernist Radio was there interviewing keynote speakers plus special guests at the USModernist compound, aka poolside at the hip Hotel Skylark. Our 2023 coverage kicks off with architecture crit...

You just can't underestimate the satisfaction of a great office chair.  We spend most of our waking lives at work, often sitting, so comfort is important.  And for many, the location of work has changed.  Accelerated by the pandemic, your workplace is as likely to be a kitchen or den as it is a floor of offices. The KNOLL company had some of the most celebrated chairs in the world including Eero S...

The Architecture and Design Film Festival, or ADFF, brings the stars, producers, and creators 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 buildings around the world.  Bergman started the series in New York and now it's i...

G. E. Kidder Smith was a trained architect, an architectural historian, and an architectural A prolific scholar, teacher, and author, he is the subject of a new book by Angelo Maggi.  Joining us today from Switzerland is Kidder's son, internationally acclaimed lutist, or is it lutenist, Hoppy Smith, and from Chicago architectural historian and author Michelangelo Sabatino, who wrote the forward to...