Us Modernist Radio - Architecture You Love

After WWII, states looked at their aging capitol buildings and considered sweeping new plans to bring technology, commerce, government, and even the performing arts into the full 20th century.  One of the few state capitols to actually achieve this was Albany NY.  The Empire State Plaza is series of Modernist office and cultural buildings that started in the late 1950’s, and it’s gorgeous.  It’s a stunning achievement spearheaded by NY Governor Nelson Rockefeller and designed primarily by architect Wallace Harrison. Albany’s master plan was so successful, other states wanted to do the same thing.  One of those was North Carolina.  In 1965, the State Capital planning Commission issues a report and a design they had been working on for several administrations.  The goal was, like Albany, to transform the epicenter of downtown Raleigh, the state capitol, into a city of the future.  The blue ribbon panel of architects, consultants, and government members presented a beautiful plan. One of those consultants from 1

Australian comedian Tim “Rosso” Ross has starred in countless Australian radio and TV series.  He’s a writer for Men’s Style Australia, Rolling Stone and Sydney Magazine.  He’s interviewed and talked with celebrities like Will Farrell, John C. O’Reilly, and Hugh Jackman through shows such as Merrick and Rosso Unplanned, The B Team, Uncharted, Facing the Hangover, and Australia Versus.  He’s a speaker, giving talks on Modernism at the Museum of Sydney, Government House, and Sydney Design Week.  And he’s been part of an 80’s hair band called Black Rose, where he totally rocks it in lycra. In 2013 Tim started a unique stand-up show ‘Man about the House’ set in real Modernist houses, with sell-out seasons in Melbourne, Sydney and New Zealand.  The best part is, he got up 7am his time to talk with us, for which we are profoundly grateful. 

Roberta Leighton "runs the place" for owner Jim Goldstein at the Sheats Goldstein house in Los Angeles, designed by John Lautner. She manages hundreds of movie, commercial, and photo shoots at the house, one of the country's most iconic. One of the most famous movies shot there was The Big Lebowski.  Roberta has also been in a ton of some of the movies and shows we love.  She was Bill Murray's girlfriend in Stripes, plus she's appeared on The Dukes of Hazzard, Barnaby Jones, Switch, Rosetti and Ryan, Days of our Lives, General Hospital, Baretta, and for over a dozen years she played Dr. Casey Reed on the Young and The Restless. USModernist Radio is sponsored by Sarah Sonke of ModHomes Realty.  Listen via iTunes. Listen on Android and Windows PC's via Libsyn.

Architect Edward Durell Stone like many of his generation fell in love with Modernism. His first independent commission was a 1933 Modernist house for Richard Mandel, which led to many other prominent commissions including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington.  Stone is one of the few architects to make the cover of TIME. Business Week called Stone "the man with a billion on the drawing board" for the number and scale of prestigious projects in development.  About that time, however, Stone had a change of philosophy about Modernist design and moved away from what he called the “transient enthusiasms” of Modernism. Stone was not alone.  By 1970, the Modernist movement was nearly dead.  In North Carolina, Stone worked with Raleigh architects John Holloway and Ralph Reeves on two of the state’s most recognized and treasured buildings, the 1963 North Carolina Legislative Building and 20 years later, the North Carolina Museum of Art.  We talk with Stone’s son, Hicks Stone, and

Design guru and critic Stephen Bayley came to prominence in the 1980's curating the Boilerhouse Project at the Victoria and Albert Museum and later created London’s Design Museum.  In the 1990’s he was briefly the creative director for a notoriously expensive and bureaucratic public boondoogle called the Millennium Dome (now the 02 Arena), and in 2007 he became The Observer's architecture and design correspondent.  We talk about what makes an architect a starchitect, his dust-up with Zaha Hadid, and his appearance on Top Gear, a world-famous BBC car show that’s still running, barely, like a 1977 Ford Capri. 

Emmy-winning filmmaker Jake Gorst is the Steven Spielberg of design documentaries, capturing mid-century modern architecture in at least 12 films on modern design, including a great series on Palm Springs architects such as E. Stewart Williams, Donald Wexler, and Bill Krisel - plus Modern Tide, Modern Ruin with past guest Matthew Silva, Beyond the Beach: The Life and Death of Norman Jaffe, and the upcoming film Frey. Architect Kyle Bergman is director of the upcoming Architecture & Design Film Festival in New York, which he started in 2008 and has expanded to cities all over the world. In 1994 he created and moderated an architectural lecture series about the design/build process for the Smithsonian Institute. An entrepreneur at heart, Mr. Bergman founded Alt Spec in 1999, a publishing company that produced a visual resource of unique and alternative products for architects and designers. Our first musical guests!  Peter Lamb and the Wolves stopped by the studio to perform "Mess Around" and "Night Witches

Rudolph Michael Schindler, who went by Michael, was one of the most important Modernist architects of the 20th century, yet he is largely unknown to the public outside California.  Frank Lloyd Wright hired him in 1918, and soon he was running Wright's studio in Oak Park the later in Los Angeles. Schindler and Wright argued frequently and eventually Schindler quit, becoming a huge success on his own.  Schindler and his wife Pauline were dead center in the Los Angeles creative scene, hanging out with the era's celebrities in art, sculpture, design, and dance. Richard Neutra and his wife lived at King's Road with Schindlers for several years! We talk with Dr. Mary Schindler, his daughter-in-law, perhaps one of the last living people who knew Michael Schindler, who died in 1953.  She was married to his son Mark at the time and lived in their famous King’s Road house with Mark, Michael, and Pauline. We also talk with musician Guillaume Schindler, Schindler's great-grandson, who is a docent at the King's Road house

What makes a house too big?  And is it really anyone’s business other than the owner?  We talk with Thomas Bena and Mollie Doyle, stars and creators of the new documentary One Big Home, based in Martha's Vineyard MA.  Like many wealthy coastal communities, new homes there are not the cottages which have dominated the area for centuries.  10,000 sf and 20,000sf and even larger McMansions started appearing during the 1990’s.  One Big Home is a documentary about Thomas Bena's work to curb the disruption of life on the island by giant houses.  But the film is more than the story of a cause.  Along the way, he found a girlfriend, Mollie Doyle, they married, moved, had a beautiful daughter named Emma - all events that influenced or changed his progress and perspective on the film and his life. 

Fire Island, just 50 miles from New York City, was one of the few gathering places in the 1950’s where gay people could feel safe in a world that certainly did not offer such a welcome.  It was also a haven for the creative class from New York and LA who built houses by Andrew Geller, Harry Bates, and the unbelievably attractive Horace Gifford. Our guest is Chris Rawlins, architect and author of critically-acclaimed Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction.  Chris is an architect who lives in New York City and Fire Island and is founder of Pines Modern, a non-profit preservation initiative documenting the island’s architecture. We also talk with the last living mid-century architect of Fire Island, Harry Bates, whose masterful Modernist coastal residences adorn both Fire Island and the Hamptons.

Ever wondered how the famed children's book Knuffle Bunny intersects with thoughtful urban planning?  Probably not. However, today's guest is well-versed in both! Allison Arieff is editorial director of SPUR, a San Francisco-based thinktank promoting urban planning in the Bay area. Allison writes about architecture, design, and cities for the New York Times, California Sunday, Wired, MIT Technology Review, and CityLab. She is a former editor-at-large for GOOD and Sunset magazines and was a founding editor at DWELL, one of our favorite design publications.  Allison is the author of Prefab, Trailer Travel: A Visual History of Mobile America, and Airstream: The History of the Land Yacht. She's been on NPR, KQED Forum, the Diane Rehm Show, the Sundance Channel, HGTV, CNN Money, and 99% invisible.

One of the problems with preserving futuristic-looking Modernist buildings is that they just don’t look that old.  They aren’t universally loved, in fact some of them weren’t that popular when they were built.  The World Monuments Fund (WMF) is a private nonprofit organization to decelerate the destruction of important artistic treasures throughout the world.  You might have heard of the Leaning Tower of Pisa?  They helped fix it.  Well, they helped stop the extra leaning.  We'll talk with Joshua David, President and CEO of the WMF about the fund's latest focus on Modernist buildings around the world. Filmmaker and high school teacher Matthew Silva produced the acclaimed documentary “Modern Ruin” about one highly endangered Modernist site, the New York State Pavilion in Queens New York, or if you’re under 40, the Men In Black headquarters. As a kid. Matthew would ride past the ruined, hulking New York State Pavilion, built for the 1964 World’s Fair, and wonder what it was. Years later while studying architect

Host George Smart reports from the USModernist trip to London last May.  He visits architect Alison Brooks who has won the triple crown of the UK's most prestigious awards for architecture: the RIBA Stirling Prize, the Manser Medal and the Stephen Lawrence Prize. Do you know you've arrived as an architect when your building gets a nickname?  And, for the first time, you'll hear the guys all sing!   

Host George Smart reports from February's Modernism Week in Palm Springs, the center for all things Mid-Century Modernist!  He spoke poolside from the Hotel Skylark with keynote speakers from the amazing week of design, art, food, lectures, movies - a delightful week. George talks with Penelope Seidler, her daughter Polly Seidler, and documentary producer Daryl Dellora who created a compelling documentary about Australian architect Harry Seidler, Polly’s dad and Penelope’s husband. Harry Seidler, who died in 2006, was Australian architect considered to be one of the country's leading Modernists.  He designed more than 180 buildings and won many architectural awards throughout his 58-year career. Daryl Dellora is also the producer behind The Edge of the Possible, the story of Jorn Utzon and the Sydney Opera House.

June is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Frank Lloyd Wright, the most famous architect in the world, still showing off 58 years after his death. Few architects have come close to Wright's arrogance, his brilliance, and his incredible output that's still with us plus buildings he designed that never got built. Today we talk with Eric Lloyd Wright, grandson of Frank, and son of Frank Lloyd Wright, Jr., aka Lloyd Wright. Although he aspired for another career, Eric eventually returned to his roots in architecture. Following his apprenticeship with his grandfather 1948-1956 he moved back to Los Angeles to work with his father until 1978. He has since been in private practice, creating his own projects plus helping clients of his grandfather and father restore and expand their buildings. Eric is the Obiwan Kenobi of architecture, involved in seven decades of buildings you know and love, such as the Guggenheim Museum in New York and Monona Terrace in Madison, Wisconsin; the Wayfarer’s Chapel in Palos Verdes, C

Host George Smart reports from February's Modernism Week in Palm Springs, ground zero for all things Mid-Century Modernist!  He spoke poolside from the Hotel Skylark with keynote speakers from the week. And today is Indiana day! Todd Zeiger is the Northern Regional Director for Indiana Landmarks Director, a nonprofit saving significant and meaningful places.  He's been particularly working saving and restoring Fred Keck's House of Tomorrow, a home that was ahead of it's time 80 years ago and in many ways still is. Jennifer Sandy is a Senior Field Officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, currently living in Chicago. She manages a diverse portfolio of National Treasure campaigns, working to save historic places by providing on-the-ground support to individuals, communities, and organizations engaged in protecting America’s heritage. Marsh Davis is the President of Indiana Landmarks. He is an ardent preservationist and has successfully saved several wonderful buildings. Davis co-wrote 99 Histori

Kate Wagner created the riotously popular blog McMansionhell.com where she tears into the impractically large, ridiculously constructed, and often hilariously furnished monuments to wealth misspent.  As a writer for Curbed and other design publications, she has appeared on 99% Invisible and has her own TEDx talk.  Like us, she's a fan of Modernist evil lairs, writing on buildings used in film to depict the evil corporation archetype in Robocop, Blade Runner, and The Matrix.  She's got a huge following and a new book in the works!

Host George Smart reports from February's Modernism Week in Palm Springs, the Mecca for all things Mid-Century Modernist!  He spoke poolside from the Hotel Skylark with keynote speakers from the week. Annalisa Capurro, aka Ms. Modernism, is a interior designer, design educator, architectural historian, speaker, writer, preservationist, MCM photographer, and mid-century design afficionado who lives in the 1956 Russell Jack House in Sydney, Australia. She is an educator at Design Centre Enmore and the University of New South Wales. At Modernism Week 2017, she starred in SEXY & CULTURE, six presentations on surprising topics related to sexual mores in the MCM world. She love-love-loves the color orange. Brooke Hodge is an architect, journalist, and blogger for the New York Times Style Magazine - and the Director of Architecture and Design at the Palm Springs Art Museum, overseeing their huge architectural assets including the Architecture and Design Center and the 1964 Albert Frey house. She's worked for s

A lot of Modernist houses you love from the 1950's and 1960's are going the way of unfortunate "renovations" or the bulldozer, largely because few people are aware of their architectural significance.  Although most houses by famous architects are on lists, it's difficult to find where they are actually located. We talk with two expert house trackers who have between them documented thousands of houses and flown tens of thousands of miles to visit them! Jan-Richard Kikkert is an Amsterdam-based architect and head of the Architectural Department of the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture. He has visited every project designed by John Lautner, over 300 from Los Angeles to Aspen and from Anchorage to Acapulco.  He is Head of Architecture Department at the Amsterdam University of the Arts and a member of the Board of Advisors of the John Lautner Foundation.  He was in the documentary Infinite Space: The Architecture of John Lautner. Paul Moore is a former architect turned IT professional. He graduated with a BS in

Host George Smart reports from February's Modernism Week in Palm Springs, the Mecca for all things Mid-Century Modernist!  He spoke poolside from the Hotel Skylark with keynote speakers from the amazing annual event. Bill Earls is the author of The Harvard Five in New Canaan, Modernist houses by Breuer, Gores, Johansen, Johnson, and Noyes.  A virtual tour of thirty-five landmark houses, 1947-1966, that elicited strong reactions from nearly everyone who saw them and are still astonishing today. Devon Chivvis is a writer, director, and producer of narrative and documentary television and film with a passion for visual storytelling. Since 2003, she has produced, written, and directed documentary and narrative television and film for a variety of clients such as Nat Geo Channel and Travel Channel. She's working on a documentary on the Harvard Five architects with Bill Earls. Bert Simonis is the producer of Quiet Elegance, a documentary on Palm Springs architect Hugh Kaptur. Originally from Amsterdam, Simonis'

Today we explore two different approaches to reviving Modernist buildings: preserving them or building them from scratch! Michael Miner is a documentary filmmaker who since 2002 has devoted his career entirely to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, chronicling the master architect’s buildings in a series of films. Miner’s first Wright film, Sacred Spaces, was completed in 2005 followed by A Child of the Sun, the story of the West Campus of Florida Southern College in Lakeland and Romanza, which was released in 2011. Miner's fourth film is called Masterpieces. But here what's really interesting - he's on a mission to actually build some of Wright's unbuilt buildings starting in Banff, Canada. Liz Waytkus is the Executive Director of Docomomo US, the leading preservation organization dedicated to the preservation of modern architecture, landscapes, and design. She has worked to increase the awareness of and appreciation for significant modern sites and developed annual Docomomo US National Symposium and the Modern