USModernist® Radio is underwritten by The Brent R. Harris Charitable Trust, restorer of several Modernist houses including Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann Desert House in Palm Springs, and by Diane Bald and The Budman Family, restoring significant architecture in Toronto, Los Angeles, Malibu and Palm Springs.

Here are all our past shows!  Or listen to them straight from our library.

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. DWELL rated USModernist Radio as the number 2 architecture podcast!

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.

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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.

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Upcoming Episodes

Apr 6 #451/ Steve Young + Megan Reilly + Musical Guests Eric Stabnau and the Glenn Miller Orchestra

Mar 30 #450/Natalie Morath + Linda Brettler + Marcos Santa Ana + Musical Guest John Pizzarelli 

Mar 23 #449/Chris Roman + Crosby Doe and Ed Dimendberg + Holland Murphy + Musical Guest Claudia Burson

Chris Roman designs a Modernist fire station in Richmond VA.  Authors Edward Dimendberg and Crosby Doe share the story of the breakout project for Richard Neutra, the Lovell Health house in Los Angeles.  Holland Murphy investigates an architectural mystery in Dallas, and from northwest Arkansas, musical guest Claudia Burson. 

Mar 16 #448/Joe Massaro's Wright Stuff + Corbett Jones + Glenn Kurtz's New York + Musical Guest Jenna Esposito

Joe Massaro brought an unbuilt Frank Lloyd Wright design to life and weathered 20 years of criticism from Wright purists;  Corbett Jones share his new documentary on Arts and architecture magazine and the Case Study Houses; Glenn Kurtz gracked down the men in Lewis Hine’s iconic Empire State Building photographs, turning symbols into real people; and musical guest Jenna Esposito keeps the 60’s alive. 

Mar 9 #447/USModernist Radio Retro: Where No Furniture Has Gone Before + Special Musical Guest Jennifer Warnes

We've dug into the podcast vault for the story of Star Trek's furniture.  Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek launched a franchise in 1966 still going strong 60 years later. Sequels, movies, toys, fan films - there's just no end to Star Trek's bright, progressive, optimistic future where Earth has transcended national and international politics. Something architecture fans may have missed, and we certainly did, is that Star Trek adapted midcentury Modern furniture for the set design, from the Bridge to the Conference Room, to the alien buildings on the planets they landed on.  Authors Dan Chavkin and Brian McGuire about talk their new book: Star Trek - Designing the Final Frontier - The Untold Story of How Midcentury Modern Decor Shaped Our View of the Future. Later on, legendary singer Jennifer Warnes, who you've loved for I've Had the Time of my Life, Right Time of the Night, Up Where We Belong, and a vast treasure of songs with and by Leonard Cohen.

Mar 2 #446/Carin Carlson + Tim Mitchell + Author Anthony Alofsin + Nevada's Paige Figanbaum + Musical Guests Naomi and her Handsome Devils

Architects Carin Carlson and Tim Mitchell from Hennebery Eddy Architects restore mid-century and Mission 66–era architecture. Anthony Alofsin, one of the world’s leading authorities on Frank Lloyd Wright, joins us to talk about his new book, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Bogk House and reveals his new, famous cousin.  Paige Figenbaum, Executive Director of the Nevada Preservation Foundation, tells us about Vegas modernism and later, musical guests Naomi & Her Handsome Devils.

Feb 23 #445/Two Gentlemen Admiring Architecture:  Australia's Tim Ross + UK's Kevin McCloud + Musical Guest Leigh Pilzer

Kevin McCloud and Tim Ross are hosts of Tim and Kev's Big Design Adventure, a globe-trotting podcast centered on people, places, architecture, and design. Later, baritone saxophonist Leigh Pilzer, whose powerful sound has anchored ensembles from the DIVA Jazz Orchestra to the immortal Tommy Dorsey Orchestra.