USModernist® Radio is underwritten 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.

USModernist

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.

Marilyn Scott -

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.

Featured In

Listen Notes

Listen Via

Never listened to a podcast before? Try this on any computer/mobile.

Presented By

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 architecture documentaries Frey II and New England Modernism by acclaimed 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


Upcoming Episodes

Nov 10 #430/Rattan with Harvey Schwartz + Hugh Martin + Aidan Anderson


Nov 3 #429/Ferris Bueller's House:  Megan Salamissek


Oct 27 #428/The Complete Tom Kundig:  Tom Kundig + Jim Dow + Musical Guest Veronneau

.Tom Kundig of Seattle’s Olson Kundig is a superstar in residential architecture, and he’s got a new book, Complete Houses.  But you can’t have a world class architect without a world class builder, and we’ll talk with Kundig’s close friend and frequent collaborator, Jim Dow of Dowbuilt. Later, you'll hear Veronneau, a husband-and-wife duo whose tunes go around the world.


Oct 20 #427/Stewart Hicks + MCM Pinball with Brian Horowitz + Willis Wonderland with Hilary Carlip

Stewart Hicks - YouTube

Back on the show is one of our favorite guests, Youtube star Professor Stewart Hicks; Brian Horowitz revives the joy and nostalgia of pinball, that midcentury pastime that was going to rot our midcentury minds, and author Hillary Carlip shares the wonderful world of Willis Wonderland, a new popup book for all ages.


Oct 13 #426/All About E. Fay Jones with Dave McKee + Jonathan Formanek + Andy Whitmore + Bad Design with Maggie Weber

E. Fay Jones is a name most architects know but the public does not.  A student of Frank Lloyd Wright, Jones moved back to Northwest Arkansas and created more than 130 buildings over a 35-year career, including the magnificent Thorncrown Chapel.  We’ve got three people dedicated to preserving Jones legacy. David McKee worked for Jones and now is the Jones whisperer; Jonathan Formanek created the E. Fay Jones Conservancy, and with his partner, Andy Whitmore, lives in the Faubus house in Arkansas, one of Jones’ largest residences.  Back in the studio,  Maggie Weber, whose takes on bad design keep us laughing. 


Oct 6 #425/Michigan's Peter Forguson + UK's Michael Diamant + Musical Guest Brent Jensen

We have landscape architect Peter Forguson celebrating Michigan’s extraordinary collection of bold, Modernist houses with the new book Contemporary Michigan. Michael Diamant in the UK really, really hates Modernism, and later on, Brent Jensen serving up classic sax with Paul Desmond. 


Sep 29 #424/Model Investor Kata Walters + Modernist NYC's Allison Meier + ADFF's Kyle Bergman + Musical Guest Klas Lindquist

Our first guest Kata Walters went from the catwalk to the construction site, changing from an international career in modeling to building Modernist houses.   Allison Meier shares her map of New York, uncovering hidden histories in architecture and culture from cemeteries to the streets. Kyle Bergman of the New York Architecture and Design Film Festival shares this year’s highlights, and from Sweden, musical guest, Klas Lindquist.