USModernist Radio
USModernist® Radio is underwritten by Diane Bald and The Budman Family, restoring significant architecture in Toronto, Los Angeles, Malibu and Palm Springs.
Here are all our past shows
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.
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Past architecture guests include 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 include Ari Shapiro, China Forbes, Madeleine Peyroux, Judy Carmichael, Toni Tennille, Stacey Kent, Jane Monheit, Jennifer Warnes, Ann Hampton Callaway, Lucy Wijnands, Monika Ryan, Diane Schuur, Noel Paul Stookey, Brenda Lee, Lenore Raphael and Howard Alden, Eliane Elias, Halie Loren, Marilyn Scott, Cheryl Bentyne, Janis Siegel, Storm Large, Kate Earl, Nneena Freelon, 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.
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Presented By
Host and Executive Producer George Smart HAIA, 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 29 local, state, and national awards, He appears in the 2020 architecture documentary Frey II and the 2024 architecture documentary New England Modernism, both by 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.
Upcoming Episodes
Aug 18 #418/The New Case Study Houses with Dustin Bramell + Cary O'Dell + Sarah and Debbie Dykstra + Music by Lenore Raphael
Aug 11 #417/Author Pairs: Corey and Margeret Bienert + Jonathan
Schroeder and Janet Borgerson + Adriene Biondo and
Chris Nichols
Our last set of poolside interviews from Modernism Week 2025 features three author pairs: Corey and Margeret Bienert on midcentury motels, Jonathan Schroeder and Janet Borgerson on instructional records, and Adriene Biondo and Chris Nichols on bowling!
Aug 4 #416/Authors Sam Lubell + John Rowland + Sarah Broughton + Musical Guest Taurey Butler
July 28 #415/Charles Phoenix + Barton Jahncke + Peter Moruzzi + Sven Kirsten
From the swanky USModernist compound in Palm Springs during Modernism Week 2025, it’s a full schedule of poolside guests. We’ve got pop culture historian Charles Phoenix, the Craig Ellwood Whisperer Barton Jahncke, and authors Peter Moruzzi and Sven Kirsten on the most fun you can have in a brightly colored Polynesian shirt - tiki bars.
July 21 #414/Tod Williams + Paul Masi + Jon Gentry + Musical Guest Carrie Marshall
On the blue plate special today we’ve got a full platter of deliciously talented architects, with Tod Williams, Paul Masi, and Jon Gentry. Later on for a jazzy dessert, music with Carrie Marshall.
July 14 #413/Daughters
of Design: Susan Saarinen + Celia Bertoia + Carla Hartman,
plus Phillip
Cox + Niall Cronin on Evans Woollen + Special Musical Guest Ari Shapiro
Recorded poolside at the swanky USModernist compound during Modernism Week 2025, we’re hanging with the Daughters of Design: Susan Saarinen, Celia Bertoia, and Carla Hartman. Back in the studio, authors Phillip Cox and Niall Cronin on architect Evans Woollen, and later, a well-known NPR host who’s toured with Pink Martini, special musical guest Ari Shapiro.
July 7 #412/Sian Winship + Bobak Ha'eri + Spencer Luckey + Music from Lenore Raphael
Joining us today is architectural historian Sian Winship; Minnesota’s MVP for midcentury modern, Bobak Ha’Eri; Spencer Luckey on his playgrounds; and music by jazz pianist Lenore Raphael.
June 30 #411/Mies with Iveta Cerna + Dirk Lohan + Max Strang on Gene Leedy
From poolside at the swanky USModernist compound during Modernism Week 2025, we’re all about two architects: Chicago’s Mies van der Rohe and Florida’s Gene Leedy, with guests Iveta Cerna, director of the Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic; and Mies’s grandson, architect Dirk Lohan. Later on, we’ll hear from Max Strang, archivist of Gene Leedy and his impressive Florida architecture.
June 23 #410/Capitol Brutalism with Angela Person and Aileen Fuchs + Bad Prefab + Special Musical Guest Madeleine Peyroux
This week is the close of a wildly popular exhibition at the
National Building Museum in Washington DC called Capitol Brutalism, the
history of DC’s best Modernist buildings. With us is Executive Director
Aileen Fuchs and head curator Angela Person. Heading to California, we’ll
hear what happened to a couple who went all-in on prefab, which is great,
but then their prefab company went belly up, which is not.
Later on, special musical guest Madeleine Peyroux dances us to the end of
love.