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.   Guest Prep Tips.

Upcoming Episodes

July 27 #467/San Francisco's Anne Fougeron + Miami's Laurinda Spear + Musical Guest Aviana Gedler

Anne Fougeron spent thirty years proving that architecture can be both beautiful and socially responsible.  The New York Times named her Suspension House one of the thirteen best modern homes in the world. Laurinda Spear co-founded Arquitectonica in a 600-square-foot studio in Coconut Grove and changed the face of Miami's architecture.   And,  at 22 years old, musical guest Aviana Gedler has already won numerous awards and released a debut album.

July 20 #466/AIA CEO Carole Wedge + Julia Jamrozik and Coryn Kempster + Darcy Frank Mackay and the Frank House

Following a few years of leadership drama, the AIA chose our first guest Carole Wedge as the next CEO for its 98,000 members.  Architects Julia Jamrozik and Coryn Kempster make swing sets and pipe installations and wrote a book about kids who grew up in Modernist homes. And Darcy Frank Mackay is one of those lucky kids.  She grew up in a 17,000-square-foot Pittsburgh house with a rooftop dance floor, an indoor swimming pool, and furniture designed by none other than Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer.  J. Carter Brown of the National Gallery of Art called the Frank House the nation's crown jewel.

July 13 #465/Understanding Richard Saul Wurman + Fighting the White House Teardown with Kim Hoagland + Musical Guest Quinn Lemley

Architect and author Richard Saul Wurman wrote more than ninety books, founded TED talks, among other innovations, and pretty much created the field of information architecture.  Architectural historian Kim Hoagland sues Trump over demolition of the White House East Wing, and musical guest, the lovely Quinn Lemley, brings Hollywood glamour back to life. 

July 6 #464/ Ellen Mirro + Howard Miller + Dominic Bradbury + Andy Cohen + Musical Guest Steve Holt

On this episode — Ellen Mirro and Howard Miller of Studio TJP; then Dominic Bradbury, author of a new book on the style we all love to love, Nordic Modernism.  Next Andy Cohen — a magician, business strategist, and NYU professor who argues that architects and illusionists are in exactly the same business. Last to bat, musical guest, Steve Holt — a Montreal jazz pianist who gave up a Wall Street career and won a Juno nomination. 

Will Bruder is a celebrated architect that never went to architecture school — he just became one of the most respected architects in America through apprenticing to Paolo Soleri and Gunnar Birkerts.  Alex Josephson quit London's most prestigious architecture program mid-degree and struck out on his own. Greg Case isn't an architect at all — he's an ad guy who out-researched the professionals and rescued a forgotten modernist from obscurity. And Suzy Cash has a graduate degree and a résumé from one of the best firms in the South, yet she traded it for an off-grid life built with her own hands.