USModernist Radio
USModernist® Radio is underwritten by June Goldfinger and Jeff Taylor, sponsors of Circle Square Triangle: a traveling exhibition on the Architecture of Myron Goldfinger - and 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 and upcoming 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, Ann Hampton Callaway, Lucy Wijnands, Monika Ryan, Diane Schuur, Noel Paul Stookey, Brenda Lee, Lenore Raphael and Howard Alden, Eliane Elias, Toni Tennille, Halie Loren, Stacey Kent, Jane Monheit, Jennifer Warnes, 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.
Upcoming Episodes
Nov 25 #380/Coastal Modernism: Ed Niles + Ralph Choeff + Musical Guest Chris Bennett
Nov 18 #379/Moving Matsumoto: Melinda and Andy Knowles + Architect Birthdays with James Biber + Musical Guest Allegra Levy
Nov 11 378/Texas + California: Katherine O'Rourke + Ben Koush + Michael Webb
Nov 4 #377/Christopher
Wilson + Ken MacIntyre + Musical Guest
Emilie-Claire Barlow
Oct 28 #376/Landscape Architecture: Chris LaGuardia + Michael Van Valkenburgh + Musical Guest Timothy Nishimoto of Pink Martini
Landscape architects are the ninjas of the design world, silently orchestrating beauty around buildings while you’re too busy staring at your phone. They decide whether that park bench is in the sun or shade, the exact curve of a sidewalk, and how to make an average building look extraordinary. They’re the ones who make sure your city doesn’t feel like a concrete jungle and that your suburban sprawl doesn’t completely lose touch with nature. Today we’ll talk with two exceptional landscape architects, Chris LaGuardia and Michael Van Valkenburgh. Later, music with Pink Martini’s Timothy Nishimoto.
Oct 21 #375/Housing The Nation: Alexander Gorlin + Victoria Newhouse + Musical Guest Nicole Lvoff
In nearly every major city, housing the homeless is a major problem. Since the defunding of residential mental health programs in Reagan era, the dramatic cost of housing, and other cutbacks in the welfare safety net, America has created a huge population of people with problems who have nowhere to live except outside. Even with the better ideas, there’s a generally well-funded, lawyered-up constituency that’s going to fight it. Joining us today are the authors of the new book Housing the Nation, architect Alexander Gorlin and architectural historian Victoria Newhouse. Later on, music from Nicole Lvoff.
Oct 14 #374/Boots On the Ground: Julianne Patterson + Benjamin Briggs + Ben Thomas + Musical Guest Helena Redman
Where does the real work get done in modernist preservation? State and local preservation groups show up at long, boring, and ridiculously bureaucratic public meetings, week after week, sometimes for years. They get historic preservation tax credits passed in most states, and they monitor everything from development to the preservation easements we talk about frequently. Joining us in the studio are two of these heroes, Preservation Durham’s Julianne Patterson and Preservation North Carolina’s Benjamin Briggs. From Chicago, we’ll talk with Ben Thomas, Executive Director of the Society of Architectural Historians; later, music from Durham's Helena Redman.
Oct 7 #373/Chad Oppenheim + Alan Pullman + David Peterson + Special Musical Guest Halie Loren
Today you’ll hear from Miami architect and author Chad Oppenheim; from Long Beach architect Alan Pullman; from New Canaan author David Peterson, and later we swoon again with returning musical guest Halie Loren singing from her new album.
Sep 30 #372/Children of Genius: Nathaniel Kahn + Elaine Dart Hanan + Special Musical Guest Lori Lieberman
Interviewing the children of mid-century architects has been one the best parts of producing USModernist Radio. We’ve had the pleasure of talking to Hicks Stone, son of Edward Durell Stone; John Barnes, son of Edward Larrabee Barnes, Ainsley Gores Gilligan, daughter of Landis; Fred Noyes, son of Eliot; Eric and Susan Saarinen, children of Eero; Raymond and Dion Neutra, children of Richard; Francesca Breuer, daughter of Marcel; Mira Nakashima, daughter of George; Miles Jaffe, son of Norman; grandchildren of Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles and Ray Eames; and many more. While most architect’s children do not become architects, Modernism is always in their DNA. Joining us today are Elaine Dart Hanan, daughter of Chicago architect Edward Dart; filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn, son of architect Louis Kahn; and special musical guest Lori Lieberman.