USModernist® Radio is underwritten by The Brent R. Harris Charitable Trust, restorer of several Modernist houses including Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann Desert House in Palm Springs, and by Diane Bald and The Budman Family, restoring significant architecture in Toronto, Los Angeles, Malibu and Palm Springs.
Listen to one of America's top-rated architecture podcasts as the USModernist® Radio crew talks and laughs with fascinating people who own, create, love, and hate Modernist architecture, the most controversial houses and buildings in the world. DWELL rated USModernist Radio as the #2 architecture podcast, with Atomic Ranch saying #1!
Here are all our past shows! Or listen to them straight from our library.
Past architecture guests Jeanne Gang, Bjarke Ingels, Daniel Libeskind, Helena Arahuete, Barbara Bestor, Moshe Safdie, Tom Kundig, Harry Bates, Peter Bohlin, Alan Hess, Peter Gluck, Robert Rubin, Blair Kamin, Barry Bergdoll, Myron Goldfinger, Kenneth Frampton, Katie Swenson, Bob Ivy, Jen Masengarb, Angie Brooks + Larry Scarpa, Gisue Hariri, Sekou Cooke, Alexandra Lange, Paul Goldberger, Inga Saffron, Jim Olson, Sarah Susanka, Raymond and Dion Neutra, Eric and Susan Saarinen, and many more.
Past musical guests Pink Martini, Ari Shapiro, China Forbes, Madeleine Peyroux, Judy Carmichael, Toni Tennille, Stacey Kent, Jane Monheit, Nneena Freelon, Diane Schuur, Noel Paul Stookey, Brenda Lee, Jennifer Warnes, Ann Hampton Callaway, Lucy Wijnands, Monika Ryan, Lenore Raphael and Howard Alden, Eliane Elias, Halie Loren, Marilyn Scott, Cheryl Bentyne, Janis Siegel, Storm Large, Kate Earl, Darius Brubeck, Maria Maldaur, Claire Martin, Robin McKelle, Bria Skonberg, Sophie Milman, Lucy Woodward, Heather Rigdon, Tierney Sutton, Diana Panton, Don Most, Judy Carmichael, Linda Eder, and Peter Lamb and the Wolves.
Featured In
Listen Via
We're on all major platforms. Never listened to a podcast before? Try this on any computer or mobile.
Presented By
Host and Executive Producer George Smart, one dark and stormy night in 2007, started what has become USModernist®, the largest open digital nonprofit educational archive for Modernist residential design in the world. George and his intrepid team of wildly dedicated volunteers and woefully underpaid staff have won 20 local, state, and national awards. He appears in the architecture documentaries Frey II and New England Modernism by acclaimed filmmaker Jake Gorst.
Announcer, co-host, and engineer Tom Guild, legendary Raleigh FM DJ, grew up in a Durham Modernist house. He was on WRDU and WQDR back when humans actually played vinyl records over the airwaves using something called radio. Over the years, Tom recorded and mixed hours of top-notch audio including Porsche By Design for the NC Museum of Art. He met Mick Jagger. He has not met Frank Gehry. The security code for the show's recording studio, SoundTrax, is 8675309. The podcast began in 2015, based in Raleigh NC, and has done remotes from Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Sarasota, London, New York, and New Canaan CT.
Reboot: Beatriz Colomina + Sandra Costa
A reboot from the archives. Princeton architectural historian Beatriz Colomina on how Playboy magazine sold Modernism to America, and designer Sandra Costa, who lived it. Originally broadcast as episode 49.
Vishaan Chakrabarti + Christiani Sampaio + Musical Guest Carmen Bradford
Vishaan Chakrabarti opens the show, followed by Christiani Sampaio. Closing us out, musical guest Carmen Bradford.
John Boccardo + Christine Madrid French + Cristian Chironi + Eyal Einik + Musical Guest Monika Ryan
John Boccardo leads off, followed by Christine Madrid French and Cristian Chironi. Then Eyal Einik, and closing out the show, musical guest Monika Ryan.
Jim Stevens + Max Strang + Philip Kennicott + Musical Guest Rick Maltese
Jim Stevens starts the show, followed by Max Strang and Philip Kennicott. Later, musical guest Rick Maltese.
Jan-Richard Kikkert and Tycho Saariste + David Mauer and Elizabeth Godley + Kyle Bergman + Musical Guest Nicole Zuraitis
We’re on today with two special guys from the Netherlands, Jan-Richard Kikkert and Tycho Saariste, the Lewis and Clark of architectural exploration, going to visit nearly all the John Lautner houses in the world. Next, David Mauer and Elizabeth Godley are bringing one of those Lautner houses back from decades of decline. We’ll wrap up with returning podcast guest Nicole Zuraitis, the Grammy-winning jazz singer-songwriter with a new album – but before that, Kyle Bergman shares what’s up for this fall’s Architecture & Design Film Festival in New York.
Mary Ruffin Hanbury + Ian Dunn + Brian Goldstein + Sarah Hill + Musical Guest Karen Myatt
Right here in Raleigh, like every town, there are buildings mostly lost to history. But not every town has a book, and today in the studio we’ll talk with preservationists Mary Ruffin Hanbury and Ian Dunn. Author Brian Goldstein tracks the work of architect Max Bond across three continents. Sarah Hill explores Modernist jewelry, and later, musical guest Karen Myatt, from Toronto.
Herb Greene and Leila Cohen + Jesse Lazar + Monica Penick + Musical Guest Harin W.
Herb Greene is a giant in the field of organic architecture, and his great-niece Lila Cohen is making a long-awaited documentary about his life and work. Jesse Lazar is Executive Director of AIA New York, one of the largest and most active chapters in the country. Monica Penick talks about her new book. And closing us out, musical guest Harin W, using AI to create the sound of vintage atomic era lounge music.
David Prutting + Sacha Roubeni + Musical Guest Carrie Marshall
Let’s visit one of our favorite Modernist cities, New Canaan CT. It’s a town full of Modernist houses made famous by architects called The Harvard Five others - and today we’ll talk with David Prutting, the New Canaan contractor who’s built many Modernist houses over the last 50 years. Then we’ll talk with the architect of New Canaan’s newest Modernist house, Sacha Roubeni. Later, we’re back in the studio with returning musical guest Carrie Marshall.
Steven Holl and Dimitra Tsachrelia + Authors Robert Ivy, Cathleen McGuigan, and Peter MacKeith + Musical Guest Halie Loren
Today's episode brings together some big names in design: architects Steven Holl and Dimitra Tsachrelia, then authors Robert Ivy, Cathleen McGuigan, and Peter MacKeith discussing their new book, Out There: Architecture Across America. And later, returning podcast guest, for whom we swoon, Halie Loren.