Architect Charles Dubois was famous for designing houses in California which earned the nickname Swiss Miss.  Designer Leonora Mahle takes us inside.  Later on, for something completely different, we’ll visit with Lady Carnarvon, the owner of Downton Abbey, aka Highclere Castle.  Set on 5000 acres, it’s the most famous house in Britain, except perhaps for an adorable little London starter home, by comparison, called Buckingham Palace, that a certain senior citizen - with a crown - lives in. Wrapping things up, one of the most beautiful voices in jazz today, Jane Monheit. 

Like the Supremes, or Destiny’s Child, today’s guests have been rocking with the greatest hits of Modernist design for decades as the daughters or granddaughters of its most iconic architects and designers, Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, and Harry Bertoia.  Carla Hartman, Susan Saarinen, and Celia Bertoia are the best of friends and speak around the country as the Daughters of Design. 

Before Bjarke Ingels, before Tom Kundig, before Charlie Gwathmey, even before Richard Neutra, two brothers rocked the architecture scene in southern California in the early 1900’s. Funded by the family behind Ivory Soap, Proctor and Gamble’s first product, Charles and Henry Greene perfected the modern bungalow in Pasadena and influenced a giant in Modernist architecture, Harwell Hamilton Harris.  Joining us is Ted Bosley, Executive Director of the Gamble House plus Raleigh architect Frank Harmon, who was close friends with Harwell Hamilton Harris and executor of his estate.  Later on, one of the top jazz vocalists in the world, Eliane Elias. 

In 1959, the US had 48 states and a population of 177 million, Frank Sinatra won his first Grammy for Come Dance with Me, DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly’s Lover, which had been banned for decades, became OK to print, and a certain exciting and controversial architect died in his 90’s.  Frank Lloyd Wright left an incredible legacy of innovative and beautiful buildings, one of which just changed hands last year in Phoenix, Arizona.  We talk with architects Victor Sidy and Amanda Hu about the David Wright house, designed by Frank for his son. 

In 1978, Australia decided to replace their old Congress, or Parliament House, in the capitol of Canberra. The competition drew 329 entries from 29 countries.  The winner was a Modernist design from the Philadelphia firm of Mitchell/Giurgola. Today we meet project architect Hal Guida, plus Felicity Abbott, the production designer for Secret City, a Australian TV political thriller starring Anna Torv filmed extensively at Parliament House. 

Some Classicists are so passionate about Modernist architecture they create a well-financed, highly effective organization to point out the flaws of Modernist buildings and actively discourage new Modernist projects. Every Classicist we talk to mentions today’s guest, Catesby Leigh, who has written about architecture for over 30 years. He co-founded the National Classical Art Society, headed by past podcast guest Justin Shubow, which advocates the classical tradition in Federal buildings and monuments.  He's a gifted writer and essayist and organizer, and we're surprised he hasn't won the Henry Hope Reed Award, the Oscar of Classicism, because no one is more deserving. If they accept nominations from us Modernist heathens, we’d like to be first to put his name in the hat. Later in the show, we sing to, and listen to, the charming Lucy Woodward. 

Architect Maria Ludwig Michael Mies changed his name.  He added his mother's maiden name Rohe and the Dutch “van der” to become, drum roll please, Mies van der Rohe. Most of his fans just refer to him as Mies – like Cher or Moby or Beyonce, he’s still one of the most famous architects in the world some 50 years after his death.  Today we talk about his greatest house – the Farnsworth House – with Alex Beam, author of the new book Broken Glass: Mies Van Der Rohe, Edith Farnsworth, and the Fight Over a Modernist Masterpiece - and Scott Mehaffey, Executive Director of the Farnsworth house in Plano IL, which you can visit.  Later on, a few minutes with Frank Harmon, reading from his book Native Places. 

In 1966 the first episode of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek launched a franchise still going strong over fifty 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. Today we meet authors Dan Chavkin and Brian McGuire about 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. 

Ho Ho Ho, get out the Festivus Pole, it’s our holiday show spectacular celebrating with returning guest co-host Erin Sterling Lewis.  If your world is Florida, Gene Leedy was one of the masters of Modernism in the 20th century, bursting on the scene as one of Architectural Record's most successful young architects of 1965.  With us is his daughter Saffie Leedy Ferris and architect Max Strang of Miami, who grew up in a Gene Leedy house, and worked for Gene Leedy.  Later on, special musical guest Laura Ridgeway and the story of the legendary jazz nightclub, the Frog and Nightgown.  This show is dedicated to Peter Ingram, co-founder of that club, who died in November 2020.

Mack Paul is a Raleigh real estate attorney who focuses on land use and public policy. He owns a sweet Modernist house designed by Brian Shawcroft, and he's an investor in several new Raleigh Modernist projects. Charlie Miller is a real estate broker in Charlotte who expanded to building exciting new Modernist houses – lots of them.  We’ll also check in with Matt Bliss and Greg Kelly for unique Modernist gifts to think about for the holidays, Later on a few minutes with Frank Harmon, reading from his book Native Places. 

Victoria Ballard Bell's new book, Triangle Modern Architecture, documents the rich history and unique cultural significance of the Triangle region in North Carolina, one of the most important on the national map of modern design. Over the last 75 years, the Modernist architecture in this area has grown to creatively combine innovation and technology with the area’s history, culture, unique landscape, and built context. Includes profiles on midcentury architects including Harwell Hamilton Harris, Leif Valand, Milton Small, George Matsumoto, Eduardo Catalano, Jon Condoret, and Brian Shawcroft, plus current Modernist modern architects including Kenneth Hobgood, Phil Szostak, Phil Freelon, Turan Duda, Ellen Cassilly, Ellen Weinstein, and Frank Harmon who wrote the foreword.  It’s an outstanding history of Triangle architecture, and then there’s also some dude who wrote the epilogue. The book is Triangle Modern Architecture, published by ORO Editions, available at your favorite local bookstore or through USModernist.

Along with Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, LeCorbusier, and Marcel Breuer, architect Walter Gropius was one of the most influential Modernist architects of the 20th century. Gropius founded the heralded Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany, but the rise of Hitler in the 1930's drove Gropius first to London working for Maxwell Fry, and later to Cambridge MA where he taught at Harvard and MIT. His post-war houses with Marcel Breuer were a distinctive combination of unusual geometries that people still treasure as owners and as fans. His granddaughter Erika Pfammatter is a musician, music teacher, and former minister of music. She's also the daughter of architect Charles Forberg and the stepdaughter of another famous architect, John Johansen. Later, a very special Gropius-related song by the one and only Tom Lehrer, still going strong at 92.

For your audible dining pleasure, today is a sumptuous Modernist buffet featuring Ralph Rapson, Elizabeth Schue Close, Frank Lloyd Wright, John Howe, and save room for dessert, a hazelnut Bjarke Ingels topped with marscapone. Yum! Jane King Hession is a Minneapolis-based architectural writer and historian specializing in midcentury modernism. With degrees in English and Art History and architecture, she is past president of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy and the Minneapolis Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians. Her latest book is Elizabeth Scheu Close: A Life in Modern Architecture, and she’s also written Frank Lloyd Wright in New York: The Plaza Years; John H. Howe, Architect: From Taliesin Apprentice to Master of Organic Design; and wait, there’s more.  Minnesotans loved her book Ralph Rapson: Sixty Years of Modern Design which won the David Gebhard Award, named for the well-known author of LA Modernism books.

If your world is Wichita, Kansas, the birthplace of Pizza Hut, White Castle and Kirstie Alley, there’s no more controversial building right now than Century II, a performing arts space built by John Hickman, a student of Frank Lloyd Wright, that’s under siege from new development. Century II Performing Arts & Convention Center was built to commemorate Wichita’s 1970 centennial. Designed by architect John Hickman, the very Modernist Century II was built provide a large and attractive civic center with a Concert Hall, Convention Hall, Exhibition Hall, and later an expo hall and an attached Hyatt Regency. Our guest today is one of the best and hardest-working Modern preservationists in the country. With the mind of an auditor, the precision of a concert violinist, and the number-crunching of an MBA, because she is all three, Celeste Bogart Racette leads the movement to save Century II from the bulldozer. She has a personal connection to the building - as her father was Mayor at Wichita when it was built. Later on, a few minutes with Kyle Bergman on the upcoming Architecture and Design Festival, this year online.

Architecture in America has been a white-dominated profession and that has been changing slowly. Very slowly. Guess what year the first Black woman got an architecture license in our fine state of North Carolina. 1950? 1970?  It was 1990. Today we welcome author and photographer Janna Ireland with a new book out on the most famous Black architect of the 20th century, Paul Williams, plus that pioneering architect from 1990, Danita Brown.

Like the Dos Equis commercials, we don’t always feature Classicists, but when we do, we go for the best.  Today we welcome one of America’s foremost classical architecture advocates, the Dr. Downtown of Providence Rhode Island, journalist David Brussat. Such a cool nickname. David runs the blog Architecture Here and There and wrote for 30 years for the Providence Journal. He has received the Oscar of Classicism, the Arthur Ross Award from the Institute for Classical Architecture. That’s a big deal. Prince Charles won that award. David is a tireless advocate for the return of classical design to public architecture and apparently loves taking Mrs. Downtown to something called Waterfire, which we’ll find out about.  Later on, a return visit from musical guests Peter Lamb and the Wolves.

Sniff, sniff!  Where's the Kleenex?  It is such a day of mourning, because from our wonderful trip to 2020’s Modernism Week, today we share the last two interviews.  What an amazing run: 18 shows, over 50 brilliant, interesting guests, all the frittatas and bacon we could eat every morning, and all the martinis we could responsibly drink in the evenings.  We've saved some of the best for last: our special closing guests are architect Takashi Yanai and car culture expert, author Gabrielle Esperdy. 

In our ongoing quest to seek out and visit other architecture podcasts, we’ve had wonderful conversations with hosts Frances Anderton, Donna Sink, Steve Chung, Josh Cooperman, David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, Bob Borson, and Debbie Millman. And hey, Roman Mars, you're next - so how about getting 99% visible with us? Today on the show, two talented architect podcasters from different ends of the country:  Della Hansmann of the Mid Mod Remodel Podcast in Wisconsin and Catherine Meng of the Design Voice Podcast in California.  Later on, a few minutes with Frank Harmon, reading from his book Native Places. 

Modernism Week in Palm Springs is no weekend tabletop show at the Elks lodge. It takes a huge village, a rather attractive Modernist village with perfect weather, to create an event that sells over 120,000 tickets across 11 days in February. There are hundreds of volunteers, and the week after it closes down, they start planning for the next year.  George Smart talks some of the people who make it happen – Modernism Week board members Maureen Erbe, Anne Rowe, and Alan Hess, plus Janice Lyle, the director of the Sunnylands complex, one of Modernism week’s partners and most popular tours.

One of the most popular lectures at Modernism Week 2020 was Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, looking at what influenced architecture, design, art, film, and West Coast jazz in the 1950s. These forms became shorthand for beauty, sophistication, and confident urban living. Today host George Smart interviews three of the five panelists from Birth of the Cool:  Elizabeth Armstrong, former Director of the Palm Springs Art Museum and co-author of the book Birth of the Cool; Michael Boyd, her co-author and furniture, landscape, and architectural designer; and past podcast guest Brad Dunning, interior designer and writer. Later on, two great friends of the show:  ace Palm Springs tour guide Trevor O’Donnell, who knows the story behind nearly every significant house in the valley, and frequent Modernism Week visitor, the Chief Curator of Philip Johnson's Glass House in New Canaan CT, Hilary Lewis.  

Woodward “Woodie” Garber was a Modernist architect whose name you would know if you lived in Cincinnati. Garber was called “a controversial visionary whose advocacy of an uncluttered openness in design grows more influential every year.” He was a brilliant independent Modernist who wanted things his own way, daring even to refer to Frank Lloyd Wright as Frank Lloyd Wrong.  Architecture was not the only controversy in his life. Being married to him, or being his child, was to experience the fury of bipolar disorder coupled with a desire to control everything – and everyone – in his path. There was a lot to process, on so many levels. He died in 1994, and it took 24 years for our guest, daughter Elizabeth Garber, to write Implosion: A Memoir of an Architect’s Daughter.  Later on, a few minutes with Frank Harmon, author of Native Places. 

Charles Phoenix is the ambassador of mid-century Americana. From his wildly popular slideshows and lectures on life in the 1950’s to his sold-out double decker bus tours of Palm Springs, he’s a crowd fave in Palm Springs. Charles sits down with host George Smart poolside at Modernism Week 2020 and later, George visits with the king of the Viewmaster, that iconic plastic toy we love with the circular reels. Martin Knowles spoke at Modernism Week on View-Master: Keeping It Reel in 3-D for 80 Years and launched exciting new reels featuring houses by Midcentury Modern architects like Hugh Kaptur, Bill Krisel, Donald Wexler, and E. Stewart Williams.

Modernism Week attracts reporters and photographers from all over the world. They make the flight or the drive into Palm Springs to cover the architecture, the art, the lectures, the occasional celebrity, and most of all, the lifestyle that we immerse ourselves into all 11 days.  Plus, there’s the huge economic impact of Modernism Week on the economy, making it *rain* on those Palm Springs butterfly roofs.  From Modernism Week 2020, host George Smart talks with Desert Sun business reporter Melissa Daniels, and later he visits with architecture photographer Elizabeth Daniels and CURBED reporter Pauline O’Connor, just after a delicious breakfast of Frittatas, waffles, granola, and bacon at the USModernist compound. 

One of the most revered names in Modernist architecture is Richard Neutra.  From coast to coast, but mostly in California, Neutra’s many Modernist houses set the standard for open, comfortable living – bringing the outside in, reducing clutter, and maximizing every square foot of a house and its usually beautiful site.  Host George Smart talks with Richard Neutra’s son, Raymond Neutra, about architecture, the passing of his brother Dion, and the future of Neutra Institute.  Next, Catherine Meyler bought a rundown Palm Springs Neutra house 20 years ago and brought it back to life after almost losing it to the elements.  Wrapping up, George talks with owner Ken Topper of the famous Lovell Health House in LA, the place that brought Neutra to huge public fame back in 1929.

From Robin Boyd to Harry Seidler to Glenn Murcutt, there’s a lot to love in Australian architecture, and today we talk with Dustin Clare and Camille Keenan, the producers behind a new streaming service and within it a new streaming series on Australian design.  Their new architecture series, Inspired Architecture, premiered recently on their new streaming architecture and design network, shelter.stream. 

Nowhere in the world celebrates Modernism better than Modernism Week in Palm Springs, California.  Every February, they have a huge architecture and design festival and for the last five years, USModernist has been there interviewing nearly all Modernism Week’s keynote speakers plus special guests at the USModernist compound, aka poolside at the hip Hotel Skylark. John Lautner designed some of the most innovative, beautiful, and concrete-intensive residences in the world.  Host George Smart talks with Lautner’s right-hand architect, Helena Arahuete, who continues his legacy over 25 years after his death, restoring Lautner houses and creating new ones for a new generation of appreciative owners.  George also visits with Tracy Beckmann and Ryan Trowbridge, owners of the Lautner Hotel in Desert Hot Springs, California, a little town only 20 minutes from Palm Springs.  It’s a hotel Lautner designed with only four rooms, each one a masterpiece.  And wrapping up, George talks with a great friend of USModernist, Trina Turk, CEO of the world-famous clothing line and new-ish owner of a vintage Lautner house in Los Angeles.

Nowhere in the world celebrates Modernism better than Modernism Week in Palm Springs, California.  Every February, they have a huge architecture and design festival and for the last five years, USModernist has been there interviewing nearly all Modernism Week’s keynote speakers plus special guests at the USModernist compound, aka poolside at the hip Hotel Skylark. In our second Modernism Week show on interiors, George Smart meets with two experts on what makes the Modernist vibe so wonderfully livable:  Sarah Archer is a contributing editor at American Craft magazine and the author of The Midcentury Kitchen: America’s Favorite Room, from Workspace to Dreamscape.  She spoke at Modernism week on The Kitchen of Tomorrow: Space Age Design in the High Tech Modern Home.  Later on, George talks wth Laura Ackerman-Shaw who established Ackerman Modern and worked with her father, Jerome Ackerman, and Design Within Reach to re-release a collection of iconic Jenev ceramic vessels first produced in 1953, with new pieces produced based on the original plaster molds.

You all remember the 1994 movie Speed, the huge hit with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock?  Ten years later, with the public clamoring for more Keanu and Sandra, they shot another movie but got completely upstaged by a co-star built of glass and steel.  The Lake House was a romantic fantasy film about a magic time-traveling mailbox for a particularly beautiful Modernist house.  Joining us today are the architect and structural engineer for that house, Nathan Crowley and  Fritz Hengge, as we celebrate the 15th anniversary of the birth and death of one of cinema's most amazing homes. Ready to be swept off your feet? Get ready for celebrated jazz singer and Modernist homeowner, the poetic, soulful, unicorn-producing Heather Rigdon, singing from her album Young and Naive.

Most Americans have not been to Australia, although a surprising number of Australians have traveled to America.  From Sydney to Melbourne to their stunning capital of Canberra, Australian Modernism is just as popular there as in the US.  Today hosts George Smart and Tom Guild talk with four Aussies among the 50 or so that came to Palm Springs last February during Modernism Week: Rachel Jackson, Annie Price, Jamie Paterson, and wrapping up, a great friend of USModernist, Ms. Modernism Annalisa Capurro. 

Today in our second Modernism Week show on architecture movies, George Smart talks with three film industry professionals with connections to architecture.  Valentina Geneva is working on a new documentary about LA architect Rudolph Schindler, and later he sits down with art director Jeannine Oppewall, the genius behind staging the sets of such films as L.A. Confidential (filmed in Richard Neutra’s Lovell House).  Wrapping up, a chat with Paula Benson, expert on the close connection between film and furniture.

Today, we dial into Miami, Florida, home of sun, fun, and some of the most over-the-top new Modernism on Earth.  In the foodchain of Miami culture, a chain which features ceviche, plantains, rum, ropa vieja, and Max Strang, one of the most well-known architects is Kobi Karp, who is not surprisingly CEO of Kobi Karp Architecture and Interior Design with many happy clients. His wife must be super happy too, because Karp recently got rapper flo-Ryda to appear for her birthday.  Later, a few minutes with Frank Harmon, reading from his book Native Places.

Architect Jim Jennings joins us from San Francisco. His Visiting Artists House, recipient of the AIA 2006 Institute Honor Award for Architecture, was named one of the five most influential and inspiring houses of the past decade.  He was awarded the 2019 Maybeck Award by AIA California, and he teaches at Berkeley.  Later on, a few minutes with Frank Harmon, reading from his book Native Places.

Nowhere in the world celebrates Modernism better than Modernism Week in Palm Springs, California.  Every February, they have a huge architecture and design festival and for the last five years, USModernist has been there interviewing nearly all Modernism Week’s keynote speakers plus special guests at the USModernist compound, aka poolside at the hip Hotel Skylark. Almost all the famous names in the pantheon of mid-century modern architecture are, well, male, a function of the widely held but false belief there weren’t many women interested in architecture, plus the sad but true fact that these women were marginalized by the profession, their colleagues, and the media.  Host George Smart meets with MW speakers Libby Otto and Jane Hall, two authors discussing amazing women in architecture we don’t know about – and why we should.

Today we welcome two internationally-known artists whose work focuses on mid-century identity: houses, cars, stores, and the relaxed sunny lifestyle to which we all would like to become  accustomed.  Danny Heller from Desert Hot Springs CA and John Pirman from Sarasota FL create bright and uplifting paintings and prints that make you smile. Their colorful, engaging portrayals of mid-century architecture and lifestyle bring joy to the world through showings in galleries and in thousands of homes.  

There’s a shining star for Robert and Helene Alexander on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars - installed last February during Modernism Week.  Although largely unknown outside of California, the Alexanders were critically important developers and builders to the expansion of Modernism. While other developers were afraid of Modernist design, as a lot still are today, sad to say, the Alexanders went all-in, working with important architects like William Cody and Bill Krisel to create thousands of homes we love around Palm Springs. Host George Smart talks with Jill Alexander Kitnick, daughter of the Alexanders, and Jim Harlan, author of a new book on the Alexanders.  Later in the show, George and Tom chat with special musical guest Colleen Duffy from Devil Doll, singing from her new album plus her biggest hit Bourbon in your Eyes. 

Host George Smart talks with two architects in New York the day before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic.  Born in Russia, raised in Canada, and now living in the US, architect Julia Gamolina has been a runaway success as the founder of Madame Architect, publishing over 100 interviews with women who advance the practice of architecture and affiliated fields, celebrating women from different generations, countries, and corners of the industry. Then it’s a subway ride to meet Gene Kaufman, the most successful hotel architect in New York and the head of legendary design firm Gwathmey Siegel Kaufman.

Nowhere in the world celebrates Modernism better than Palm Springs, California. Every February, they have a huge architecture and design festival called Modernism Week which actually lasts 11 days. We were there interviewing nearly all the major speakers and special guests. When we can't go to Modernist houses ourselves, architectural photographers bring them to us, both new and iconic, by waking up at 5am to get the right light, or taking hours to set up a shot only available a few minutes. Hired by architects, magazines, and occasionally clients, architectural photographers ultimately become historians, their body of work becoming a visual timeline to the evolution of design, materials, and photography itself. Darren Bradley travels the world on architecture assignments and runs the wildly successful Instagram feed @modarchitecture. In 1998, he and his wife rented a mid-century modern house in Palm Springs, and he was smitten. He began researching, exploring and appreciating modernist architecture more and more. Darren's work has appeared in large-format art books, academic and professional architecture journals, and lifestyle magazines around the world. He regularly accepts international commissions from architects, builders, developers and homeowners.   Returning guest Andrew Pielage is an architectural and travel photographer based out of Phoenix with 20 years creating photography by capturing the heart and inspiring the imagination. Pielage has photographed some of the best architecture and most beautifully stunning landscapes on the planet and talks about his quest to shoot every Frank Lloyd Wright building in the world.

You don’t typically think of bridges as architecture, not the highway ones, particularly.  There are about 600,000 in the US, with only a few dozen getting anyone excited, and most of those like the Golden Gate Bridge and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge were built nearly 100 years ago.  Today from the UK we welcome Martin Knight, an architect whose heralded bridges worldwide create portals to cities while helping cars, trains, and pedestrian traffic from one place to another. Founded in 2006, his firm won several high-profile international design projects and what soon will be the longest bridge in Helsinki, Finland.  He joins us from just outside of London in a place called Taplow, which is an award-winning 1966 Modernist area designed by Eric Lyons.

In the first of two shows on Modernist interiors and interior designers, host George Smart chats poolside with two organizers of the Alexander Girard exhibition held during Modernism Week at the Palm Springs Museum of Art, Christine Marvin of Marvin Windows and Doors and Michela O’Connor Abrams of MOCA+, and later he talks about interior designers Steve Chase and Arthur Elrod with former Chief Curator of the Museum, Katherine Hough, who worked with them both.

There's a new streaming series on AppleTV+ called Home, nine shows about unusual houses around the world.  George Smart talks with one of Home's Story Producers Loren Gomez about two of those houses, one in Sweden that's totally enclosed by a greenhouse and one in Texas that's pretty much underground.

Today you’ll meet two CEO’s of HOK, one of the most successful architecture firms in the world, past CEO Patrick MacLeamy and current CEO Bill Hellmuth.  Every architecture student knows HOK, and it’s one of the largest design firms in the US with 1800 team members.  Since 1955, HOK has designed hundreds of major projects like the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in DC, Apple’s first major campus in Cupertino, the George Bush Presidential Library in Texas, Orioles Baseball Park in Baltimore, the expansion of Saarinen's Dulles Airport, the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum near Dulles Airport, DFW Airport in Dallas, and last but not least, the renovation of Joe Biden’s least favorite airport, LaGuardia.  Wrapping up, a few minutes with architect Frank Harmon, reading from his book Native Places.

Nowhere in the world celebrates Modernism better than Palm Springs, California.  Every February, they have a huge architecture and design festival called Modernism Week which actually lasts 11 days.  Today in the first of two shows about architecture-related movies taped at Modernism Week, host George Smart talks with filmmakers Jake and Tracey Gorst of Frey Part 2: The Architectural Interpreter, and later he visits with P. David Ebersole and Todd Hughes, directors of the new Pierre Cardin film, House of Cardin.

Today on USModernist Radio it's a full slate of great guests:  art collector, model collector, race car driver, softball player, and architect Ronnette Riley, project lead for the Lipstick Building in New York designed by Philip Johnson. Later on, Virginia Faust talks about the venerable Lustron, the house of the future that didn't make it, plus special musical guest Leonardo with the world's only Lustron song, and a new feature - architect Frank Harmon reading from his new book of sketches and essays, Native Places. 

Other than Frank Sinatra, there are few people who are so tightly woven into the spirit of mid-century culture than 1950's Hollywood star Marilyn Monroe. Sometime later this year, plans call for a nearly 30 foot tall statue of her in the famous blowing white dress to return to Palm Springs as a permanent home.  In her day, Marilyn was as big as any celebrity you could name.  She was involved with some of the most well-known men in the world:  baseball great Joe Dimaggio, playwright Arthur Miller, and generally accepted nowadays, John F. Kennedy. And she has a connection to a very famous architect. Hosts George Smart and Tom Guild talk with three people who keep Marilyn’s legacy alive for the 21st century. First, it’s Sunny Thompson, who has been channeling Marilyn in her live shows and completely brings her back to life. Next, Greg Schreiner, who has one of the worlds largest collections of Marilyn’s costumes and also leads the annual memorial service in Los Angeles, and finally, Joshua Greene, son of photographer Milton Greene, who took some of Marilyn’s most memorable photos. Marilyn was, for a time, Joshua’s babysitter!  

In a mid-century world way before Instagram, people kept up with the latest buildings primarily through architecture magazines.  Although a few titles like Architecture Record are still going, there were many exceptional publications that in their heyday from 1945-1970 reached millions of readers across the US and the World. Today we welcome John Morris Dixon, the last editor of one of those great magazines, Progressive Architecture. Dixon has interviewed and written about just about every Modernist architect we’ve ever mentioned on the show, and his books include Paul Rudolph: Inspiration and Process in Architecture, Urban Spaces 1&2, Progressive Architecture’s Twenty Years of Design Awards, and Pencil Points Reader.

Craig Ellwood was one of the most exciting people in American architecture. He took Los Angeles by storm and no one since has fully captured his personal style or his incredible story - but that's on the way. Although he took structural engineering courses at UCLA, Ellwood was not a licensed architect, but that did not matter to him or to his clients. Ellwood was a true design genius. Ellwood could sell, too.  He had a red Ferrari (among other great cars) and was a perfect fit with the celebrity culture of Los Angeles. He was a master of promotion. Derided by the architecture profession of which he was formally not a part, he rose to public fame when three of his houses were included in the iconic Case Study House series for Arts and Architecture Magazine. His houses are still incredibly prized today.  From poolside at the swanky Hotel Skylark, host George Smart interviews noted Ellwood restorer Barton Jahncke and his client, Ellwood owner Diane Bald, and later on George talks with architects of another Ellwood restoration, Joe Dangaran and Brett Woods.

Skidmore Owings and Merrill, which sounds like a law firm your uncle Mitch might work at, created international airports, stunningly tall skyscrapers, universities, flagship museums, and landmark corporate headquarters since the 1930’s. In its heyday it was the Amazon of design firms, one of the largest in the world, with projects such as the 1973 Sears/Willis Tower in Chicago, the 2010 Burj Khalifa in Dubai, international airport terminals in Chicago and Kansas City, Lever House, the 2013 World Trade Center, the new Penn Station, the Waldorf Astoria restoration, the first net-zero-energy school in New York City, and even the design of Moon Village, a concept for the first permanent lunar settlement. It's a global architectural, urban planning, and engineering firm, founded in Chicago by architects Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings and engineer John O. Merrill.   Today we talk about SOM with Nick Adams, author of Gordon Bunshaft and SOM: Building Corporate Modernism and architect, preservationist, and design writer Kate Reggev.  Later on, George and Tom welcome returning special musical guest, jazz singer Valerie Wood. 

Nowhere in the world celebrates Modernism better than Palm Springs, California.  Every February, they have a huge architecture and design festival called Modernism Week, which actually lasts 11 days. This was the fifth year USModernist has been at Modernism Week, talking poolside at the USModernist Compound, aka the hip Hotel Skylark, with nearly all the keynote speakers, authors, and special guests. When modern-day Dorothy's kick their red ruby slippers together, they don’t go to Kansas, they land next to in Frank Sinatra’s pool in Palm Springs. Modernism Week is a dazzling spectacle of mid-century architecture, martinis, lectures, art galleries, shopping, nonprofit benefit events, architecture documentary premieres, amazing parties at incredible houses, brilliantly curated house tours, detailed art and architecture exhibits, and much more.   Today we kick off 2020 Modernism Week coverage with architect Daniel Libeskind, known for the Jewish Museum in Berlin, Germany, the master plan for the World Trade Center reconstruction and memorial, and the Danish Jewish Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark. He’s one of the world’s most highly regarded architects and someone people can trust to work with projects of great meaning and significance, especially where loss in involved.   Next, host George Smart visits with the Queen of Palm Springs, the woman everyone wants to talk to by the pool, Nelda Linsk.  Later a delightful chat with Alison Martino, producer, writer, reporter, preservationist, and a master chronicler of old Hollywood, in which she grew up as the daughter of singer Al Martino.