USModernist Radio
 

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.

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 China Forbes, 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, 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 19 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.

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Upcoming Episodes

 Feb 24 #393/New Architecture Books 2:  DJ Waldie + Dominic Bradbury + Pierluigi Serraino

Following up from last week, three more authors with exciting new books on architecture and design.  DJ Waldie is the bard of Lakewood California with a new book, Becoming Los Angeles. Past podcast guest, the prolific Dominic Bradbury, has a new Atlas of modernist icons.  And returning podcast guest Pierluigi Serraino shares in the Modern Garden how often-underappreciated landscape design were the secret sauce for midcentury Modernist houses. 

Feb 17 #392/New Architecture Books 1:  Aaron Betsky + Sam Lubell + Darren Bradley + Carl D’Silva

With so many good architecture books coming out, we can barely keep up scheduling interviews.  But we are gonna try.  Joining the show are authors Aaron Betsky and Sam Lubell, architecture photographer Darren Bradley, and Danish Modern furniture savant, Carl D’Silva.  

Feb 10 #391/Architecture Movies: Valentina Ganeva + Ken Ogborn + Special Musical Guest Melora Hardin

It’s architecture movie day, and with us is Valentina Ganeva, the producer/director of the latest doc on Rudolph Schindler, Schindler Space Architect.  Actor Ken Ogborn shares a short film on photography and brutalism in the UK. Then it’s the actress and singer we’ve loved for decades in just about everything, musical guest Melora Hardin. 

Feb 3 #390/Children of Genius

It’s our ever-popular Children of Genius show, with guests Jim Venturi, son of Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi; Peter Nowicki, son of Matthew (Maciej) and Stanislawa (Siasia) Nowicki; and Sue Ann Kahn, daughter of Lou Kahn.

Jan 27 #389/Subways with Architect John McAslan + The Toast of Illinois, Champaign + Breakfast with Musical Guest Monika Ryan

Almost as inspiring as Modernist houses are today’s new mega-transportation centers, those sweeping complexes for airports and subways to move millions of people.  They are huge canvasses for architects like today’s guest, Scottish architect John McAslan, who’s working on the hot mess that is Penn Station.  Later we’ll explore the Toast of Illinois, Champaign, with Phillip Kalantzis-Cope, author of Mid-Continent Modern and Jeffrey Poss.  Then it’s off to New York for a fine dining breakfast in New York with returning podcast guest Monika Ryan. 

Jan 20 #388/Kevin Keim on Charles Moore + Evan Dyer Rebuilds an Ellwood + Lou Grotta Preserves a Meier

. Architect Charles Moore, the architect of California’s famous Sea Ranch, was one of the chief proponents of postmodernism. His work brought a return to more ornamental detail, steep roofs, and shingles, among other classical features, and we’ll learn more from Kevin Keim, Director of the Charles Moore Foundation.  Next, you’ve heard for a year about the destruction of Craig Ellwood’s Zimmerman house in Los Angeles, now you’ll hear attorney Evan Dyer’s plans to bring it back.  Then we talk with Lou Grotta on preserving a Richard Meier-designed house for the future.