The promise and pursuit of successful prefab houses has been going on nearly 100 years. Frank Lloyd Wright tried and it didn’t go so well.  Sears, the retail store that's hurting these days, had a pretty good run in the early 20th century. For a while, people loved ordering houses right out of the Sears catalog.  Later on after WWII, the cult favorite Lustron, well, not so much.  There have been more than a dozen firms trying to create a modular home line that people will buy in large-enough  numbers.  But the idea of getting a well-designed, energy-efficient, affordable factory-built house delivered to your lot and assembled in days or weeks?  What’s not to like?  Today we continue the prefab quest with Connect Homes’ Gordon Stott, Jared Levy, and Greg Leung. Then we visit with Steve Glenn, founder and CEO of Plant Prefab and Steve’s collaborator, Swiss designer Yves Béhar. Later on, a few minutes with Frank Harmon.

It’s not easy being an architect. Make a living running an architecture practice can be tough. Just getting through design school is grueling, and then there's years of internship and employment detailing utility closets - while sitting in a thoughtfully beautiful but completely open office - where everyone can hear and see everything you’re saying and doing. Once out on your own, clients who want imaginative design solutions are hard to find, especially in smaller cities. The money is not great. Design isn’t enough to sell your work.  Standing out in the field of architecture is also who you know, how well you sell, and how well build your brand.  We talk today with architecture communications and marketing experts Liz Kubany, Iva Kravitz, Sara Kolata, and Mark LePage.

Remember when libraries were dark stately places with only books and magazines?  Where if you talked at more than a whisper some stern librarian shushed you? No one likes to be shushed!  And forget about eating or drinking. While those stately libraries still exist, new libraries have computers, 3d printing, video production, and even lattes.  New construction is almost always modern, with naturally lit rooms replacing those dark bookstacks.  Libraries have become community centers, voting centers, and social services centers, too. Joining us are two well-known Modernist library architects, Raleigh North Carolina’s Louis Cherry and from Oslo Norway, architect Siv Helene Stangeland.

This is the fifth year USModernist Radio has covered the New York Architecture and Design Film Festival, if by festival you mean mostly online and by New York you mean all over the world.  Every year, producers, experts, stars, and creators gather to premiere their latest architecture and design documentaries, and this past year with COVID subsiding, but still concerning, Executive Director Kyle Bergman had a hybrid schedule of virtual and in-person screenings.  Today, George talks with people behind three of those documentaries, Nico Weber of Inside Prora, Lauren Levine of Unity Temple: Frank Lloyd Wright's Modern Masterpiece, and Nathan Eddy of Battleship Berlin. Later on, a special musical guest, Storm Large. 

Architect Louis Kahn has been gone almost 50 years, but his legacy and influence only grows as architects the public alike cherish his enduring importance. His major works include the National Parliament in Dhaka, Bangladesh; the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California; the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth Texas; and the Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island in New York City. Kahn was also a revered educator, teaching at Yale and The University of Pennsylvania. Joining us today Michael Merrill, author of the new book Louis Kahn, the Importance of a Drawing, and filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn.  Yes, he's related.

Oh, how times have changed for the newspaper world. From 2008-2020, about two-thirds of newsroom jobs went away. Then the pandemic hit and more than 90 local papers shut down or were slashed in headcount. Even big papers like the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and the New York Times are smaller and more focused, with digital and video media adding to but more often replacing coverage of cultural topics like architecture and design.  While the big papers still cover stories like glamourous supertall buildings - and lawsuits when the pipes break - one newspaper burrowed away in the heart of New York City continues to put out some of the best, most detailed, most comprehensive architecture coverage.  Joining us is Diana Darling, founder and publisher of The Architect’s Newspaper, and its new-ish editor-in-chief, Aaron Seward. Later on, architecture commentary from our special Gen Z correspondent, Louisa Whitmore, and music with Kate Earl.

Happy Holidays with George, Tom, Raleigh architect Erin Sterling Lewis, and author Elizabeth A. T. Smith, whose famous book on the Case Study Houses is an architecture heavyweight champion. The New York Times said “You need a California workout to lift it, but the book, an exhaustive homage to the houses, is worth the effort.” Architecture critic J. P. Cohen said, “This book is a true gem, and considering its size it's the Hope diamond.” Later on, the John Lautner homeowner who’s been on Batman, The Monkees, and the ultimate 60s teen movie, Beach Blanket Bingo, musical guest Donna Loren.

Columbus, Indiana is a city of just over 47,000, yet the national AIA ranks it 6th in the nation for architectural innovation and design – behind Chicago, New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington DC.  Like Marfa, Texas is for artists, Columbus is a modernist architecture fan’s heaven with an astonishing lineup of buildings by celebrated architects like Eero Saarinen, Richard Meier, I. M. Pei, and Kevin Roche.  Joining us is Richard McCoy, founding director of Landmark Columbus, and Mary Chandler,  Vice President of Cummins, the company that funded the design of all of these great buildings. Later on, musical guest Judy Carmichael, host of NPR’s Jazz inspired.

In 1950, a modest glass-walled Modernist house designed by Gregory Ain was on exhibit in the Museum of Modern Art’s garden, another in the Museum’s series of full scale builds of Modernist houses.  A system of movable walls made flexible spaces even though there were only two-bedrooms.  But once the exhibition closed, the entire house, and any knowledge of it, disappeared. Countless people over the decades searched for it. The New York Times published an article in 2017 extolling the mystery and highlighting efforts from filmmakers, academics, and the Museum to find it.  Our George Smart solved this Modernist mystery, and today we'll hear from guests Emily Ain, Cornelia Cotton, Soni and Lisa Bell, David Stevens, Shaun Kelly, and New York Times reporter Eve Kahn. Later on, musical guest Alice Peacock, for which we swoon.  

Remember our show a while back on Seattle Modernism with Jim Olson of Olson Kundig?  Well before Jim Olson and Tom Kundig came along, the Pacific Northwest had architect Paul Hayden Kirk creating amazing Modernist houses.  Joining us today is Dale Kutzera, author Paul Hayden Kirk and the Rise of Northwest Modern.  Later on, travel in time back to 1961 and the Rat Pack with music from Deana Martin, daughter of one of the coolest dudes ever, singer and actor and producer Dean Martin. 

Research Triangle Park in North Carolina is the largest planned research center in the United States, and it’s getting bigger - much bigger, at least in terms of buildings.  During its first heyday in the 1960’s, Research Triangle Park boasted several Modernist corporate campuses, most notably Paul Rudolph’s complex of buildings for Burroughs Wellcome. Now under the leadership team of today’s guest, Research Triangle Foundation CEO Scott Levitan, the park has over a billion in new investment going up – in addition to a brand new Apple Campus.  Later on, a chat with Suzanne Somers about the famed Richard Neutra-designed Kaufmann house in Palm Springs, which can be yours for a consumer-friendly $17 million, $8 million off original retail price. 

Architects like Chambers, Clark, Cody, Frey, Kaptur, Krisel, Wexler, and Williams put the Modernist architecture of Palm Springs on the map from the 1940’s through the 2000’s, and in Hugh Kaptur’s case, still going at age 90.  Behind them are a new generation of Modernist architects and today we talk with one of the area’s most successful, Sean Lockyer.  Later on, comedian and former architecture student Aaron Kominos Smith.

One of the great architects of midcentury Palm Springs was William F. Cody, featured in the Leo Zahn documentary Desert Maverick. Joining us is the author of a new book on Cody - his daughter, Cathy Cody, and later on, drummer Raice McLeod remembers the amazing singer Eva Cassidy and shares two of her songs.

When we hear about a Modernist house by an important architect being bought and destroyed, there’s widespread outrage from preservationists. Why didn’t these people try to save them?  Why didn’t the buyers consult architectural historians?  The owners should be forced to do whatever it takes, and whatever it costs, to keep the houses intact, right?  It’s a classic struggle between property rights and preservation ideals.  Turns out, though, that some of those dastardly owners actually followed the rules, got the approvals, met with the committees, consulted the historians, and still got criticized by the preservation community. Today we talk with Ross Johnston, owner of the Largent House in San Francisco, designed by Richard Neutra, and Mike and Nina Marco, owners of the Biggs House in Delray Beach Florida, designed by Paul Rudolph.  Later on, music with Susannah Clifford Blachly.

Just when you thought it was another safe architecture chat, it’s our Halloween midnight madness Mod-tacular, and joining us is someone who knows where all the bodies are buried, author Henry Kuehn of Architects Gravesites – along with modern preservationist by day, horror historian by night, Christine Madrid French. Later on, music from Peter Lamb and the Wolves, hopefully under a full moon.

This has been a tough time for travel, but in between COVID surges last summer, host George Smart managed to get to New York City for a series of conversations with architect Gisue Hariri, DOCOMOMO-US founder and architecture professor Theo Prudon, and prolific architecture journalist Fred Bernstein.  Later on, a few minutes with TikTok design critic Louisa Whitmore.

Connecticut is famous for the first hamburger (1895), Polaroid camera (1934), helicopter (1939), and color television (1948). It’s the home of PEZ, World Wrestling, and Design Within Reach.  It’s also a hotbed for Modernist houses by many famous architects such as Philip Johnson, John Johansen, Eliot Noyes, Edward Durell Stone, Gisue and Mojgan Hariri, Marcel Breuer, and even Frank Lloyd Wright.  Joining us is Ken Sena, Connecticut Marcel Breuer homeowner and recently part of the new documentary Breuer’s Bohemia by past podcast guest James Crump. Later, a conversation with Philip Johnson homeowners Craig Bassam and Scott Fellows of BassamFellows.

The European Union has some of the same problems we do: damaging climate change, a flood of immigrants, and a population frequently in disagreement.  But while America argues vaccines and pounces on Hamilton’s uber-inclusive Lin-Manuel Miranda for not being inclusive enough, the EU President Ursula von der Leyden created the New European Bauhaus High-Level Round Table.  Nice.  These valiant design knights of the design realm include Bjarke Ingels, Shiguru Ban, Francesca Bria, and today’s guest Michela Magas, a designer and innovation specialist based in Sweden. Later on, delightful jazz with musical guest Monika Ryan.

The Stahl House in Los Angeles is among the most famous houses in the world. Designed by Pierre Koenig and engineered by William Porush, the Stahl House and its pool were immortalized by legendary design photographer Julius Shulman. In a conversation recorded poolside at the swanky Hotel Skylark in Palm Springs, where they were part of a panel discussion at the Palm Springs Museum of Art, our George Smart talks with Shari Stahl Gronwald and Bruce Stahl. They grew up in the Stahl House and spent a lot of time in that pool. Joining them is author Kim Cross of the new book The Stahl House: Case Study House #22—The Making of a Modernist Icon. Later on, an update on the New York Architecture and Design Festival with Executive Director and friend of the show Kyle Bergman, plus music with architect and artist Albert McDonald and Fallow Ground.

Peter Bohlin and Peter Gluck are two of most innovative and successful architects in residential Modernist design.  In careers spanning over 14 decades, if we add them all together, their award-winning practices created several hundred award-winning houses you can see at usmodernist.org/gluck and usmodernist.org/bohlin.  Later on, commentary on the the famous Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe with Louisa Whitmore. 

Like the Holy Grail or Colonel Sanders special 11 herbs and spices, people have been searching for the secret to successful prefabricated houses for nearly 100 years.  What could possibly be better than reasonably-priced, mostly factory built house parts assembled on your land in a matter of days or weeks, not months?  The promise of well-designed houses fast and cheap turns out, not so easy – or popular with a public that still prefers developer tract houses. Joining us is Professor Avi Friedman, author of the new book Prefab Living, and Allison Arieff, founding editor at DWELL and author of the 2002 book Prefab. Later on, special musical guest Maria Muldaur, putting that camel to bed.

The bluest skies you've ever seen?  The hills the greenest green?  It’s Seattle, Washington, backdrop for TV shows such as Grey’s Anatomy, Frasier, and if you go back far enough, Here Come The Brides, the breakout series for 70’s pop icons David Soul and Bobby Sherman.  In addition to having the most tech jobs in North America (sorry, San Jose) the Emerald city is also home to Starbucks and incredible Modernist houses from the early days of Paul Hayden Kirk to today’s guest, architect Jim Olson of Olson Kundig.  Later on, jazz with singer Erin Boheme, then a few minutes with Frank Harmon.

There’s a lively city on the West Coast, a sprawling California metropolis that many consider the epicenter of Modernist architecture. Sorry, Bakersfield, it’s not you, although you’ve got two good ones we know of. We’re talking greater Los Angeles, 30,000 plus square miles from the valleys to the sea and across the mountains with thousands of Modernist houses from the 1920’s through today.  Joining us is the Director of Advocacy for the Los Angeles Conservancy, Adrian Scott Fine, and LA city planner Ken Bernstein, author of the new book Preserving Los Angeles: How Historic Places can Transform America’s Cities. Later on, jazz from the UK with the charming Hetty Loxston.

Marcel Breuer was one of several architects who brought European Modernism to the US. He was known for hundreds of projects including the Atlanta Public Library, The Whitney Museum in New York, the Pirelli Building in New Haven, The Housing and Urban Development Building in Washington DC, and many iconic houses in Massachusetts and Connecticut.  No one was more passionate than Breuer about his work - except for maybe Rufus Stillman, who commissioned four houses over the years. Joining us is James Crump, author of Breuer’s Bohemia, a new Marcel Breuer book - and movie. Later on, a few minutes with architect Frank Harmon.

Born in Zurich, Switzerland, architect Albert Frey was the first American to work for Le Corbusier, working on the famous Villa Savoye project among others. Le Corbusier helped Frey get a job with American architect A. Lawrence Kocher, also the managing editor of Architectural Record. After WWII, Frey moved to the resort community of Palm Springs and Frey become synonymous with desert modernism. His projects include the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway Valley Station, Palm Springs City Hall, Tramway Gas Station, and many houses. Joining George Smart and co-host Jake Gorst, director of two films on Frey, is Craig Hartzman, executive vice chair of the Palm Springs Art Museum, which is putting on a major 2022 Albert Frey Exhibition; Brad Dunning, curator of that exhibition, and Marc Koller, Albert Frey's godson. Later on, jazz with musical guest Rebecca Kilgore, accompanied by the legendary Dave Frishberg.

Many of our Modernist listeners are planning long-delayed holidays.  Oh where shall you go?  Roman ruins?  Cape Cod Villages?  Colonial Williamsburg?  We doubt it.  You’re planning to hit the Modernist hotspots, and to help you we talk with Stefi Orazi, author of Modernist Escapes.  Later on, the leading edge of high school architecture education with returning guest Joan Gand - then music from Palm Springs finest, the Gand Band. 

In Sarasota, Florida, one of the east coast’s finest centers for Modernism, names like Paul Rudolph, Gene Leedy, Victor Lundy, Tim Siebert, and Jack West dominated the design scene from the 1940’s through the 1980’s.  Then came a new generation of architects that took things to a whole new level.  One of those, Guy Peterson, joins us from Sarasota.  Later on, returning musical guest Heather Rigdon, then a few minutes with Frank Harmon.

What is a beautiful building?  What is an ugly building?  People have very different reactions looking at say Biltmore versus Fallingwater, and not just because they are vastly different sizes.  Joining us to discuss beauty in architecture is Don Ruggles, author of Beauty, Neuroscience & Architecture and Producer of a new documentary, Built Beautiful.  Next, special USModernist correspondent Raymond Neutra interviews Lisa Heschong, author of Visual Delight in Architecture: Daylight, Vision, and View. Later on, a few minutes with our new design commentator, TikTok sensation Louisa Whitmore. 

Let’s say you collect stamps.  If you go to the stamp club, you’re gonna find people who collect more stamps than you.  Then if you go to the stamp convention, you’re gonna find an even more successful crowd.  Then if you go to Sotheby’s for one of their top stamp auctions, you’re gonna find Mr. – or Ms. -- Big.  In the world of serial Modernist owners, Mark Haddawy is Mr. Big.  He’s had his hands and his budgets on more classic Modernist houses than just about anyone.  Later on, music with the Sting of Sweden, Anders Holst.

It’s almost a certainty that before anyone owns a Modernist house, they own a piece of Modernist furniture, the gateway drug of great architecture.  Today’s guests are Amy Auscherman, design archivist at Herman Miller, famous for the Aeron chair, Noguchi table, Marshmallow sofa, and the Eames Lounge Chair, among many other icons, and Gwen Emery, Director of Library Environments at NC State University Libraries and the author of the book ChairHunt.  Later on, a few minutes with architect Frank Harmon.  Plus George's quest for an ES106!

Tom Wright studies volcanoes.  If that’s not exciting enough right there, and it certainly was for us, he’s also the grandson of Frank Lloyd Wright and lives in a Wright House - the last one still owned by the family. Also joining us is Wright author Steven Reiss and later, music from the breakout singer of the 1961 Newport Jazz Festival, Carol Sloane. 

Architect Jim Evans moved to the Modernist mecca of New Canaan CT in 1957. By then the town had many Modernist houses, not only by the Harvard Five of Breuer, Noyes, Johnson, Johansen, and Gores but others like Frank Lloyd Wright and Edward Durell Stone. USModernist special correspondent Rafe Schlanger talked with Evans in what would be Evans' last interview. Later, enchanting jazz from Manhattan Transfer's Janis Siegel.

Every town hopes that someone will come along, and at no expense to the town, create something beautiful. We’re not talking a new mall. We’re talking acres of flowing grounds open to the public, an award-winning complex of stunningly beautiful buildings by a world-class architecture firm, and a philanthropic mission that includes, among other noteworthy causes, the elimination of slave labor in the construction supply chain. One visionary person did just that in the Modernist center of New Canaan CT, notable for houses by Philip Johnson, Eliot Noyes, John Johansen, Frank Lloyd Wright, Edward Durell Stone, Gisue and Mojgan Hariri, Jim Evans, and other famous Modernists. What did our heroine get in return for this amazing project? A cranky Planning and Zoning board and crankier neighbors who apparently are into lawsuits. Joining us is Sharon Prince, CEO and Founder of Grace Farms. Later on, jazz from Canada with musical guest Lily Frost.

Bertie County, North Carolina, has only about 19,000 people, about 62% Black. That's fewer than in most city zip codes. It’s one of the poorest county in the state, and the population is down about 10% over the last decade. Black farmers lost much of their land as subsidies and credit by the USDA heavily favored white farmers. In 2007, the schools were in terrible shape, as you might expect. Then, an innovative school superintendent came to town, did a great job, and got fired. One of the programs he sponsored was Project H, teaching design and construction skills to high school students. There was a documentary about this called If You Build It. Nearly 10 years later, we talk to Emily Piloton-Lam, cofounder of Project H and executive director of Girls Garage; and Ron Wesson, a Bertie County Commissioner. Later on, music with Star Search champion and Broadway star Linda Eder. This show is dedicated to that school superintendent, Chip Zullinger, who died in 2014.

Tomorrow's architects and their architecture critics are today's teenagers. Joining us are Danielle Willkens, author of the new book, Architecture for Teens: A Beginner Book for Aspiring Architects, and an actual teen critic, Louisa Whitmore, a TikTok sensation from our favorite jazz nation, Canada. Later on, surprise, surprise - Canadian jazz with Sophie Milman.

Every industry has insiders, and no city other than perhaps New York attracts more attention from residential architecture than Los Angeles.  Joining us is James McClain, co-founder and editor-at-large at Dirt.com, which tracks significant celebrity houses. He's James now, but previously he had a secret identity. Later on, music from legendary jazz musician, Dave Brubeck, and his son, Darius Brubeck.

In our ongoing series Children of Genius, we’ve spoken with Raymond and Dion Neutra, sons of Richard Neutra; Guilliame Schindler, great-grandson of Rudolph Schindler; Randy Koenig, son of Pierre Koenig; Susan and Eric Saarinen, children of Eero Saarinen; Eric Lloyd Wright, grandson of Frank Lloyd Wright; Emily Ain, daughter of Gregory Ain; Celia Bertoia, daughter of Harry Bertoia, Eames Demetrios and Carla Hartman, grandchildren of Charles and Ray Eames, Erika Pfammatter, granddaughter of Walter Gropius, and Annie Gwathmey, daughter of Charles Gwathmey. Today we reach out to Palm Springs to talk with graphic designer Gary Wexler, son of architect Donald Wexler, and ophthalmologist Erik Williams, son of architect E. Stewart Williams. George chats with the new national AIA president, Peter Exley of Architecture is Fun, and later on, jazz with the lovely Connie Evingson.

Have you ever wondered what’s it’s like to live in a $5M apartment in the New York skyline?  What about a $10 million coop?  A $25 million penthouse?  Joining us is Andi Schmied, aka Gabriella, a visual artist who pretty much became a performance artist, talking her way into some of these very posh residences. Later on, jazz with Bobbie Eakes, a face you know from Days of our Lives, The Bold and the Beautiful, and even the very last episode of Laverne and Shirley – but a voice you might not. 

From an author who’s created a worldwide book of mostly Modernist buildings to a master Modernist who created beautiful buildings across the world, we’ve got a great show today. Joining us first is Adam Štěch, author of the new book Modern Architecture and Interiors, an atlas of more than one thousand Modernist architectural masterpieces;  next a true master, architect Victor Lundy, along with Lundy author Donna Kacmar, and later on from Canada, our favorite jazz country, musical guest Diana Panton.

Way before there was an internet, the way people learned about buildings outside of their city was in architecture magazines. Initially in black and white, which still has a certain allure, and later in color, magazines such as Architectural Record, Progressive Architecture, Art and Architecture, Architecture Forum, House and Home, and Architecture Plus chronicled new construction.  All of these publications, sadly, are gone – except for one.  At 130 years old and still wild and frisky, Architectural Record continues to bring readers stories of amazing buildings and architects around the world – and we do love their annual Record Houses issue.  We’ll talk today with Architectural Record publisher Alex Bachrach, host Aaron Prinz of the magazine’s podcast Design:ED, and all the way from the Netherlands, Phoebus Panigyrakis who did his PhD on Record's midcentury Modernist heyday. Later on, double trouble jazz with singer and trumpeter Bria Skonberg.  

We love visiting great architecture and Modernist architecture does get visited – a lot – but nothing compares to the number of people who enjoy it through photography.  Especially this last year, when we’ve all been hunkered down awaiting vaccinations, we’re reading and streaming visions of amazing homes, offices, and urban planning.  Join us today is Wayne Thom, a photographer famous for capturing Late Modern architecture in the western US, and returning podcast guest Emily Bills, an educator and writer who just published a new book on Wayne’s work.

Researching Modernist architecture hasn't always been easy, particularly before the internet, if anyone remembers back that far. Before our phones were full of Cardi B, Tik Tok, and $32 million inheritance offers, pending a $1200 processing fee, of course, researching Modernism meant spending time in real life deep in a major library. Fortunately, the web brings incredible research resources and tools without leaving the comfort of your cool ranch Dorito-covered couch. Those are delicious, aren't they? Today we visit with two giants of Modernism research, Bill Storrer, creator of the Storrer system for Frank Lloyd Wright projects, and one of our favorite podcast guests, the Maestro of Modernism, the jolly green giant of Googie, the Samuel L. Jackson of architecture documentaries; the Ryan Seacrest of Modernism Week hosting dozens of events, author and speaker Alan Hess. Later on, a few minutes with architect Frank Harmon, reading from his book Native Places.

2020 was the fourth year USModernist Radio has been part of the New York Architecture and Design Film Festival, if by festival you mean online and by New York you mean anywhere on earth. Every fall, the authors, producers, experts, stars, and creators gather to premiere their latest architecture and design documentaries.  Today we talk with Rikke Selin Fokdal and Kaspar Astrup Schröder, producers of the new documentary Making A Mountain, Bjarke Ingels flat-out brilliant solution to the unsavory task of burning trash in Denmark, a country with no mountains. Later we welcome the incomparable singer Nneena Freelon as we remember her husband, architect Phil Freelon.

Everybody’s got some niche they are into, right?  There are cat people, NASCAR people, golfing people, escape room people, and even after 55 years, Star Trek people. Today we welcome leaders in two special niches of Modernism, Beth Lennon, aka Mod Betty, of Retro Roadmap, and Howard and Gaby Morris of GreyScape, a London website dedicated to Brutalism, Modernism, and Constructivist design. Later on, jazz with the wonderful Melissa Morgan.

Whenever our friends the Classicists want to troll Modernism, they claim it's Communist-inspired and therefore no good. Since we have never known any building to determine economic policy, joining us are two people who dive deep into this "concrete" issue in the former Eastern Bloc: Haruna Honcoop, director of the film Built to Last: Relics of Communist Era Architecture, and Marie Kordovska, granddaughter of of Věra and Vladimir Machonins, late-modern architects from Czechoslovakia. Later on, musical guest Hailey Tuck.

Harriet Pattison met renowned architect Louis Kahn in 1953 at Yale, but the real sparks flew years later in Philadelphia where she and Lou Kahn had a romantic relationship and a son, Nathaniel. It was, um, complicated. Pattison is an accomplished landscape architect, working in the Vermont office of the famous Dan Kiley and studied landscape architecture under Ian McHarg at the University of Pennsylvania School of Fine Arts. She collaborated with Kahn on a number of projects, especially fulfilling, after his death in 1974, the 2012 completion of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in New York City. In 2016 she was inducted as a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Her new book is Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn. Joining Pattison is former Kahn staff members Richard Saul Wurman and Reyhan Larimer, plus Steve Kroeter, publisher of a re-released book on Kahn.

It’s one thing when neighbors don’t like that butterfly mother in law shed in your backyard.  It’s another when thousands of people in a city are without housing and neighborhoods don’t want them anywhere close.  Over the decades, architecture has proclaimed the solution to this and other social problems can be solved through design, but as Dr. Phil might ask, “how’d that work out?”  Not so well, as large mid-century public housing projects proved over and over.  Today, however, there are new approaches and new understandings of both public policy and design that hold great promise.  Joining us today are Andrea Urton. CEO of HomeFirst Services, a Silicon Valley agency supporting housing the homeless, and architect Michael Lehrer of Los Angeles.  Later on, from the Lone Star State, jazz vocalist Rosana Eckert.

Well-known Modernist architects came to fame in a time before computers, a time where getting published in magazines was the mid-century equivalent of going viral.  Even if an architect lived in a large metro such as Los Angeles, world of mouth and house tours wouldn’t get you the big commissions.  Blowing up meant having photos of your work in major publications of the era. To get those photos, you had to have a great photographer who really understood design and light and capturing the beauty of a project.  Joining us are Eric Bricker, producer of Visual Acoustics, a documentary about the life and career of celebrated architecture photographer Julius Shulman, and Keith Isaacs, one of the South’s rising stars in architectural photography.  Later on, jazz with the fabulous Stacey Kent.