USModernist® Radio is underwritten by Diane Bald and The Budman Family, restoring significant architecture in Toronto, Los Angeles, Malibu and Palm Springs.
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.
.jpg)
.jpg)
Past 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 Pink Martini, Ari Shapiro, China Forbes, Madeleine Peyroux, Judy Carmichael, Toni Tennille, Stacey Kent, Jane Monheit, Nneena Freelon, Diane Schuur, Noel Paul Stookey, Brenda Lee, Jennifer Warnes, Ann Hampton Callaway, Lucy Wijnands, Monika Ryan, Lenore Raphael and Howard Alden, Eliane Elias, Halie Loren, Marilyn Scott, Cheryl Bentyne, Janis Siegel, Storm Large, Kate Earl, 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, and Peter Lamb and the Wolves.
Never listened to a podcast before? Try this on any computer/mobile.
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 2020 architecture documentary Frey II and 2024's New England Modernism, both by acclaimed documentary 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
Oct 19 #427/IIT's Stewart Hicks + MCM Pinball with Brian Horowitz + Willis Wonderland with Hilary Carlip
Oct 12 #426/All About E. Fay Jones with Dave McKee + Jonathan Formanek + Andy Whitmore + Bad Design with Maggie Weber
Oct 5 #425/Michigan's Peter Forguson + UK's Michael Diamant + Musical Guest Brent Jensen
Sep 29 #424/Model Investor Kata Walters + Modernist NYC Allison Meier + ADFF's Kyle Bergman + Musical Guest Klas Lindquist
Sep 22 #423/Children of Genius: Toby Rapson + Ron Kappe + Musical Guest Holly Cole
We’re back with one of our most popular segments, Children of Genius. The apples don’t fall too far from the tree, and today we’ll hear from two of those apples, Toby Rapson and Ron Kappe. They grew up immersed in modernist design with some of the most influential architecture of the 20th century, thanks to their fathers Ralph Rapson and Ray Kappe. It’s a modernist tradition they continue today. Later, Modernist homeowner and musical guest Holly Cole.
Sep 15 #422/New Palm Springs with Jill Lewis + John Hreno + Southland Modernism with Edward Peck + Musical Guest Jaimee Paul
You all know we love midcentury modern houses in Palm Springs, but what about new ones? These will be the houses we will tour and sip martinis at and give lectures about 40 years from now. Today we’ll talk with one of those architects, Jill Lewis, about a new house in the Desert Palisades area of Palm Springs, along with the landscape architect for that project, John Hreno. Then we’ll meet the leader of SOCOMCM, architect Edward Peck, plus returning jazz vocalist Jaimee Paul.
Sep 8 #421/Authors Dominic Bradbury + Adam Stech + Musical Guest Elijah Rock
Who’s the author of that architecture book on your coffee table? It’s probably written by one of our guests, Dominic Bradbury and Adam Stech. Later on, jazz with returning musical guest Elijah Rock.
Sep 1 #420/Wright's Price Tower with Macy Snyder-Amatucci + John Snyder + Journalist Ian Volner + World's Fairs with Bill Cotter + Music by Lenore Raphael
Today, it’s Bartlesville, Oklahoma, home to Frank Lloyd Wright’s skyscraper, the 19-story Price Tower, talking with new owners Macy Snyder-Amatucci and John Snyder, about their plan to bring the tower back to life. Then it’s on to Washington DC and the administration’s plans for architecture, with writer and critic Ian Volner. Next, World’s Fairs with Bill Cotter, and later, music from jazz pianist Lenore Raphael.