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.
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, 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, 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
June 30 #411/Mies with Iveta Cerna + Dirk Lohan / Gene Leedy with Max Strang
June 23 #410/DC Brutalism with Angela Person + Aileen Fuchs / A Brutal Loss with Zach + Brooke Davis + Special Musical Guest Madeleine Peyroux
June 16 #409/Chris Rawlins on Horace Gifford + Donald Luxton on Arthur Erickson + From Boston, David Fixler
June 9 #408/Authors Nora Wendl + Todd Gannon +Mary Anne Hunting + Kevin Murphy + Musical Guest Gabrielle Stravelli
June 2 #407/Men About Town in Palm Springs: Christopher Kennedy + Kip Serafin + Kurt Cyr
From poolside at the swanky USModernist compound in Palm Springs, today’s guests are the three distinguished men about town. Need a midcentury sofa in green tomorrow? How about a tour for 25? Or a private cocktail party at the Dinah Shore house? Who are you gonna call? As the expression goes, we got a guy, actually three guys, who make these wonderful kinds of things happen.
May 26 #406/Ben Rousseau + Ian Koblick + John Jennifer Marx
From timepieces to undersea lodges to 21st century architecture, we’ll step outside the box a bit today to talk with Ben Rousseau, underwater house pioneer Ian Koblick, and architect John Jennifer Marx.