Us Modernist Radio - Architecture You Love

Ohio native Dan Duckham moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1956 after graduating 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 joining him is architect and author Randolph Henning, who in addition to his design practice writes books on architects following the tradition of Frank Lloyd Wright such as Alfred Browning Parker and Aaron Green.  His next book is on Dan Duckham. Later on, the Queen of the American Songbook, musical guest Ann Hampton Calloway. 

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 Carolina’s legendary bandleader, trumpeter Jim Ketch. 

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 Brow,  founder of FORT LA, aka Friends of Residential Treasures. Later on, music from Durham’s Sharp 9 Jazz club with pianist Lenore Raphael and guitarist Howard Alden. 

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. 

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 Queen of Palm Springs Nelda Linsk. Later on, music with China Forbes from Pink Martini, who will tell us what really happened with Eugene. 

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.

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 Rosemary Krieger, artist Christopher Georgesco, Destination Eicher’s Karen Nepacena, and musical guest Lizzy Shapiro of LA’s hottest jazz and swing band, Lizzy and the Triggermen.

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 the contributions of Asian-American architects, many of whom suffered through the forced relocation of internment camps during WWII.

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 that brought Seagrams spirits to fame in the 20th century.  She created the Canadian Centre for Architecture, one of the world's leading architectural museums and research centers and 1954, she oversaw the design of the Seagram Building in New York City by Mies van der Rohe.  Later on, it's the first woman president of the AIA, Susan Maxman, who in the 90's broke a century of male leadership in America's largest professional association for architects.

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. Later on, returning podcast guest Peter McMahon of the Cape Cod Modern House Trust shares his group’s wildly successful preservation of Modernist cottages, including their new campaign to buy and restore the Marcel Breuer house in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, largely untouched since Breuer died over 40 years ago.  Learn more about the Maxon house at www.maxonhouse.com and www.maxonrailway.com.  Learn more about the CCMHT at www.ccmht.org.

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 of Manhattan, the firm continues to do amazing projects, even designing habitats for the moon and mars. George was back at the Bjarke Ingels Group offices recently to interview BIG partner Martin Voelkle, who has overseen the design, development, and completion of projects such as 2 World Trade Center in New York, the Smithsonian master plan in Washington D.C., and the King’s Cross Google Headquarters in London. He’s also manages BIG’s few but high-profile house designs.

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 in the Hamptons.  Later, music with the charming Staci Griesbach, who headlined at one of USModernist's Moon Over Modernism events.  And she's got a new album out!

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 Miami, which you should put on your travel list; the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and Philip Johnson's Glass House.  She’s been Vice Chairman at Sotheby's and consulted for the Cleveland Clinic, Disney, and the fabulously midcentury modern Noyes House in New Canaan Ct. She’s a podcast producer, she’s into web3 and NFT’s and the blockchain and AI and anything cutting-edge.  In her spare time, she’s been on Stanford's Arts Council, Stanford's Cantor Museum, and she’s Chair of New York City's Municipal Arts Society.  George Smart, flagbearer for the B-students, engages this delightful guest.

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; Raymond and Dion Neutra, children of Richard;  grandchildren of Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles and Ray Eames; and children of Craig Ellwood, Bill Cody, Charlie Gwathmey, Charles Deaton, and many more.

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 saint of Modernist design in Palm Springs.  Curating that exhibition, we have the noted and in-demand Palm Springs and LA designer, preservationist, returning podcast guest Brad Dunning.

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 by the time it opened in the 1990’s.  Of course, the neighbors fought it, as neighbors do with just about anything Modernist, and now it’s a source of pride for all of Los Angeles.  If you’re into architecture, art, history, or research, the Getty is a must-see Modernist complex, all-white, of course, that’s a Richard Meier thing.  Admission is free, and it’s an astonishing accomplishment and gift to the world, especially the gardens.  On the show, we’ve got Chandler McCoy, the Getty's Senior Project Specialist with Conserving Modern Architecture Initiative.  Later we’ll talk AI with Michael Gilbride and how it’s affecting architecture and design.

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. Organic architects are a fiercely independent breed, using their intuition like Yoda would use the Force, taking on unusual materials and construction techniques, and sculpting residences that look out of this world.  More simply put, organic architecture is to modernism like monks are to priests, and these monks take their craft very seriously.  As a client, you tell them what you need, but you are not going to tell them what to design.  Joining us today are two prominent living organic architects, Bart Prince and Michael Johnson and later on, returning musical guests Peter Lamb and The Wolves.