Way back in 1987, New York Institute of Technology architects Michael Schwarting and Frances Campani saved the 1931 Aluminaire House from destruction, and rebuilt it. Then they had to take it apart. Now nearly 40 years later, Aluminaire House reached it’s final resting place at the Palm Springs Art Museum, visible today on the museum grounds. Recor…

Joining the show are three documentary filmmakers bravely capturing architects and architecture on film. Making these movies is an incredible labor of love; it takes a tremendous amount of work and time, often years, you’re fundraising continually, production is expensive, even when done on the cheap, and the financial reward at the end of all that…

From the great postwar transatlantic liners to the sleek Scandinavian cruise ships of the 1970s, to Captain Stuebing and the Love Boat, ships and private yachts are also design showcases that featured edgy, trendsetting architecture. Maritime historian and art dealer Peter Knego and yacht owner Brian Biggott joins George poolside at Modernism Week …

In May of 1950, a young man attended a packed lecture by Frank Lloyd Wright in the then-new Reynolds Coliseum at NC State in Raleigh NC. It was the largest architecture lecture ever in North Carolina. He was also witness to the construction of the 1954 Catalano House, sadly destroyed in 2001. Today George talks with architect Truman Newberry, now i…

Recorded poolside at the Hotel Skylark during Modernism Week in Palm Springs, prolific architect and architectural historian Alan Hess talks about California architect Irving Gill, who was doing Modernism way back in 1905; plus Erin Ellwood, daughter of Craig Ellwood, on her father’s singular legacy. Later, back in the studio, music with the enchan…

In another of our wildly popular Children of Genius shows, we’re honored to talk with furniture designer Mira Nakashima, who carries on the tradition of her father, George Nakashima, and Peg Risom Bull, daughter of Danish furniture designer Jens Risom.Autor: george smart

An exhibition last fall on the late architect Myron Goldfinger opened and USModernist was there moderating the panel’s remembrances. Circle Square Triangle: The Architecture of Myron Goldfinger, closed at the end of 2023 but will be touring other locations in 2024. Myron Goldfinger’s signature Modernist houses of the Hamptons and Westchester in New…

Creating affordable, transportable, innovative prefab houses has been the holy grail of architecture for 100 years, and if you were reading DWELL in the early 2000’s, you couldn’t miss their coverage of the latest adventurers on that quest. Joining us today is one of the most successful, Michelle Kaufmann, now with Google. Later on George travels t…

Ohio native Dan Duckham moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1956 after graduating in architecture from Miami University of Ohio. Three years later in 1962 he formed his own firm and over the last seven decades, Dan Duckham completed more than 500 projects, including many Modernist houses. Dan Duckham is one of the last living masters of Florida modern, and…

Recorded at New York's Architecture and Design Film Festival, George talks with Jason Cohn and returning podcast guest Fred Noyes talking Modernism Inc, a documentary about Eliot Noyes. We’ll also visit with another filmmaker from the festival, Hans Christian Post, who has a few problems with idyllic Copenhagen. And later on, music with North Carol…

There’s a new edition out of the popular book Midcentury Houses Today, and we’ll have on co-author and architectural photographer Michael Biondo. Next up, someone we admire for keeping Modernist houses on the radar in Los Angeles, filmmaker Russell Brown, founder of FORT LA, aka Friends of Residential Treasures. Later on, music from Durham’s Sharp …

Two authors of new books: Todd Cronan, with the book Nothing Permanent: Modern Architecture in California; and, don’t throw any stones, it’s Andrew Heid, with the book Glass Houses. Later on, George and Tom welcome musical guest Claudia Acuna.Autor: george smart

Have you seen that photo of the two gorgeous glamourous blondes, sitting in loungers, sipping drinks by the pool of a Richard Neutra house in Palm springs? That iconic photo, called Poolside Gossip, was taken over 50 years ago by Slim Aarons. Joining us Shawn Waldron, author of a new book on Slim Aarons, and one of the two women in that photo, the …

We gear up 2024 with conversations with Damien Lipp and Stephanie Mauro on tiny houses in Iceland; Long Beach Architecture Week’s Sal Flores; a Modernist renovation in Altadena CA with Goli Karimi, and later a wonderful musical guest, Nicole Zuraitis.Autor: george smart

In October, USModernist was at the Palm Springs Modernism Show and visited with hundreds of wonderful fans from around the country. We are going to be in Palm Springs again in February for Modernism Week, and in preparation, George spoke with today’s guests, architectural archivist Frank Lopez of Sunnylands, the Palm Springs Modernism Show’s Rosema…

Returning podcast guest Takashi Yanai is a partner at Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects where he is director of both the Los Angeles and San Francisco residential studios. Returning podcast guest Mina Chow is and architect and Principal of mc2 Spaces, a multimedia company. She is also an architecture professor at USC. Mina and Takashi talk about…

Happy 2024! We open up the new year with another great episode in our continuing series Children of Genius. Francesca Breuer Wallace gives her first interview - ever - on her father Marcel Breuer; and later it’s the grandson of Aino and Alvar Aalto, Heikki Aalto-Alanen, with a new book on his grandparents.…

What better subject to talk about during the holidays than Modernist bliss? Joining us is Charlotte North Carolina architect and author Toby Witte. And later, not one but two holiday musical guests: from his new Christmas album, Michael Sinatra, and bringing holiday cheer from Raleigh NC, Peter Lamb and the Wolves.…

In architecture up until the 1990’s, it was raining men, and the few women architects had to work twice as hard to get the same recognition and the same pay, if they got either at all. That's slowly changing, thanks to pioneering leaders like today's guests. Phyllis Bronfman Lambert is a Canadian architect, philanthropist, and member of the family …

Be careful about giving a coffee table book to your architecture-lovin’ spouse for Christmas, because one day, you might have a new Modernist house by a famous architect - plus a railroad - on your property. Joining us is Seattle brand designer Lou Maxon and his long strange journey to build a Tom Kundig house with a unique Kundig gizmo on rails. L…

As our 23 loyal listeners know, we’re solid fans of Bjarke Ingels and his wildly successful design practice Bjarke Ingels Group spanning London, Copenhagen, New York, and China. With projects like the combination incinerator and ski slope in Copenhagen, and Via 57, One Hudson, the Spiral, and the BIG U flood protection barrier wrapping around most …

The architects of midcentury houses in the 1950’s and 1960’s are all retired now, some for many years. It’s a true privilege as fans from a later generation to sit down with these men and women and hear their stories. Joining us today is celebrated architect Barbara Neski of New York City, now in her 90’s, famed for award-winning Modernist houses i…

Every now and then, we run into A-students who have become so accomplished in the multiple worlds of art, architecture, preservation, business, and common sense, that it’s a shame not to share those conversations. Joining us today is Christy MacLear, the founder of Artist Ventures. She’s been CEO for Superblue, a thrilling immersive experience in M…

In our ongoing series Children of Genius, we’ll talk to John Barnes, son of New York Modernist architect Edward Larrabee Barnes, and Ainsley Gores Gilligan, daughter of Connecticut architect and one of the Harvard Five, Landis Gores. They join our past interviews with family of well-known architects such as Eric and Susan Saarinen, children of Eero…

George sneaks into the studio to make a special announcement.Autor: george smart

Few large art museums in the world are dedicated to architecture as well as art, and joining us is Adam Lerner, the CEO of one of those, the Palm Springs Art Museum. A few blocks away, that museum owns another museum, the Palm Springs Architecture and Design Museum, location of an upcoming January exhibition on architect Albert Frey, the patron sai…

Back in the 1980’s, architect Richard Meier got a commission for a series of buildings in Los Angeles. The Getty Foundation, sourced from the prestigious family of oil fame, wanted a huge new complex on land they owned off the 405. This would turn out to be one of the largest private commissions in the world at the time, costing about 1.3 billion b…

The Modernist architecture we love is exciting, edgy, sometime inexplicable, often brilliant. Modernism has been around a long time, yet there’s also been a movement beyond Neutra and Corbusier and Gropius and Breuer and Mies, that’s frequently misunderstood. We’re talking about organic architecture, houses that make Neutra look downright classical…

Returning podcast guest Stewart Hicks is best-known for his wildly popular YouTube video series Architecture with Stewart, and in his spare time, he’s Associate Dean at the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Every few weeks, you’ll find a new YouTube release helping the general public, which is us, on topics as varied …

What modernist architect doesn’t want a museum commission? Along with airports and hotels, or huge corporate campuses for tech bros, museums are the most lucrative and high-profile projects an architect can get. Budgets are big, backers are rich, publicity is guaranteed, and most of the time clients want the architect to fully self-express their wi…

Melodie Yashar is VP for building design and performance at ICON, a firm devoted to developing 3D construction. Their neighborhood of attractive, affortable 3D-printed houses, designed by the Bjarke Ingels Group, went on sale in Austin TX this past June. Later on, we talk with German director Jan Schmidt-Garre whose latest film is The Promise: Arch…

Palm Springs has seen its share of glamour, from the Hollywood celebrities who made the place their playground last century to the musicians and entertainers who kept the party going. Today we’ll hear from Will Friedwald on the jazz trio The Poll Winners; Courtney Newman on the classic entertainers who flocked to Palm springs; and Susan Claassen, w…

Renovations on Modernist buildings can be particularly tricky. Nick Martin's firm recently remodeled Charles Gwathmey’s Tolan House in the Hamptons. Matt Loader and Iain King of Loader Monteith lead Modernist preservation projects including the Glasgow School of Art Mackintosh Building, the Jenners Building redevelopment, and something definitely n…

Modernism isn't just architecture; it also highlights the artists and artisans whose textiles, ceramics, furniture, and other objects bring modern spaces to life. Recorded at Modernism Week 2023, we’ll hear from a gaggle of interesting guests: Susan Brown, Alexa Griffith Winton, Leigh Wishner and Charlotte Von Hardenburgh on textile artist Dorothy …

In 1946, Carl Strandland asked for $15 million worth of emergency loans to build small houses for GIs returning from WWII. Strandland was not an architect, but his idea that metal neighborhoods could be prefabricated and swiftly built was persuasive, and Lustron prefab house was born. To manufacture the ten tons of steel that went into each two-bed…

As more and more midcentury buildings get destroyed, we have to rely on midcentury photography collections as a window into the past and as inspiration for the future. Today we’ll talk to Ethan Wayne, son of actor John Wayne, Laurie Kratochvil, and Amy Shepherd about the John Hamilton Collection, a priceless trove of photographs from Hollywood’s go…

Architectural historian Owen Hopkins has written or edited 16 books on architecture and his stories have appeared in Architectural Design, Dezeen, the Independent, and Blueprint, among many others. A graduate of the Courtauld Institute in London, Owen has served as architectural program curator at the Royal Academy of Arts, senior curator at Sir Jo…

Vishaan Chakrabarti is the Founder and Creative Director of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism where he leads the firm’s growing global portfolio of cultural, institutional, and public projects. His latest book is A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America; his major argument is that well-designed cities have the capacity to address …

What would happen if you threw the letters of the alphabet in a hat, drew out two at random, then asked people with those initials on a podcast? Today we find out, and just like Sesame Street, today’s show is brought to you by the letters W and G. We could have chosen from musician Woody Guthrie, grandpa on the Waltons Will Geer (George: loved that…

Architects Albert Frey and Lawrence Kocher designed the Aluminaire House in 1931 for New York’s Allied Arts and Industries Exhibition. Tens of thousands of people went through this experimental house design. Now, over 90 years later, Aluminaire has been sitting in a tractor trailer, boxed up, at the Palm Springs Museum of Art. Joining George is Leo…

If you’re considering buying a midcentury Modern house, you’re surely going to need some repairs, maybe as much as a full renovation. Mostly likely you’re not in construction or architecture, so you’re gonna need help and you really don’t want to screw it up. The good news is that there are expert builders around the country who specialize in Moder…

You know when you go to an impressive Modernist building, part of what’s impressive is more than just the structure. The landscape all around the building, from the sidewalks to the signage to the plants to how the sun hits everything just right – this is the stuff that the general public often takes for granted. But it doesn’t happen by accident, …

Joining us here in the studio is designer and builder Alicia Hylton-Daniel, owner of the Durham North Carolina firm Hylton Daniel. Later on, from Romania, it’s the creator of the wildly popular “of houses” blog, architect Daniel Munteanu.Autor: george smart

One of the most famous homes in Palm Springs is the Kaufmann House, designed by Richard Neutra. It was recently the star of Don't Worry Darling, filmed right before it sold, and there's a rich history there. Even Barry Manilow owned it at one point! Adele Cygelman is the author of Palm Springs Modern and Arthur Elrod: Desert Modern Design. Her rece…

Welcome to USModernist Radio, where we talk and laugh with people who enjoy, own, create, dream about, preserve, love, and hate Modernist architecture, the most exciting and controversial buildings in the world. Joining us today is one of foremost architectural historians in the world, professor, and former Museum of Modern Art architecture curator…

We all love midcentury Modernism, but what about new Modernist houses? How much do you follow the past versus innovating for the future? After all, we are not the same culture and technology and building materials we were in the 1950's. And what about renovations? Today's show features homeowner Sean Gaston, who's working on a restoration project c…

Joining us is Robert Rubin, no not the guy who was secretary of the Treasury under Bill Clinton, although people do get them confused. This Robert Rubin built one of the world's only Modernist golf clubhouses and will be transforming that golf course into a Modernist enclave. He also saved and restored a Pierre Chareau house in Paris, the famous Ma…

More fun Modernist places most people don't know - explored from conversations at Modernism Week 2023 between George Smart, Tom Guild, and: Simcha Schtull on the Elvis Honeymoon House, Melissa Riche and Dan Allen on Rancho Mirage, Dana Al-Marashi and TK Harvey on the United Arab Emirages; and the famous Isokon building in the UK with Magnus England…

We're thrilled to talk with two of America's foremost architecture critics, recorded in New York City. Alexandra Lange is an award-winning architectural critic for Curbed.com and the author of several books on architecture and America’s built environment. A graduate of NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts and a former Loeb Fellow in the Harvard University …

Today’s show, recorded at Modernism Week 2023, is places. With some great guests, we will explore Southridge in Palm Springs with architect Susan Secoy Jensen; Marfa, Texas with Dean Upe Peter Flueckiger; and the Rocky Mountains with author John Gendall. After that, music with returning podcast guest Laura Windley and her Mint Julep Jazz Band.…