USModernist Radio - Architecture You Love

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#288/Common Ground: Building Community in LA with Frances Anderton Feb 20, 2023

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Returning guest Frances Anderton has been telling stories and distilling ideas about design, architecture, and the cityscape of Los Angeles in print and broadcast media and at public events since 1991. Born and raised in Bath, England, Frances earned a degree in architecture at the University College of London. After serving as associate editor at Architecture Review, during which she was exposed to Los Angeles's modernist wonders, she moved to the States, where she became the host of the wildly popular public radio program DnA: Design and Architecture. Her latest project is the book Common Ground: Multifamily Housing in Los Angeles. She's on the board of Modernism Week and is a frequent speaker on architecture around the country.

#287/Valentine's Day: Our Love and Modernism Show Feb 13, 2023

Show notes

It's our Valentine's Day show, and what could be better than being in love? Oh man, your brain is on a euphoric, crazy, often stupid, out of your mind focus on someone or some building that lights you up. You can't stop checking messages, you can't stop googling. Your heart is racing, and your body is a circus of feel-good chemicals. Dopamine revs you up, and serotonin falls, taking your rational old self right into Hallmark card territory – and cutting your appetite. Adrenaline and nor-epinephrine kick in, then oxytocin like a big teddy bear, comes in for the cuddle. Are we talking about people, or Modernist architecture? Today it's both, with three couples merging their personal and professional passions. First up, curator Sascha Feldman and architect Jacob Esocoff, and interior architects Christine Stucker and James Veal. Later, music from the fjords with Norwegian jazz couple Heidi Skjerve and Daniel Formo.

#286/Topeka Modern: Saving the Docking Building with Michael Grogan + Paul Post Feb 06, 2023

Show notes

Topeka Kansas is the home of the famous Supreme Court case Brown vs. Board of Education that ruled against segregation, it's where Annette Bening and Katrina of Katrina and the Waves grew up. It's where Wil Wheaton of Star Trek used to party with Penn Gillette. It's where Dr. Phil started … a health club…. with his dad in 1971, well before being discovered by Oprah when the beef industry sued her. And it's the home of Plains Modern, a small but intrepid group battling to save Kansas's modernist heritage, specifically one particular state office building. Joining us today are architect and professor Michael Grogan of Plains Modern and attorney Paul Post.

#285/Hangin' with Mr. Jerald Cooper of HoodCentury Jan 30, 2023

Show notes

Architecture is a tough field, one of the most demanding in terms of academic work. Once you graduate, a Masters Degree in something else is usually needed. Then entry level pay is seldom great, and everyone, we mean everyone – is a critic. Back in the 20th century, when Modernism had it's heyday, the small number of black architects had it even harder, yet - they quietly created homes and buildings across America that with a few exceptions, like Paul Williams, rarely got any fame or press. White people don't think of midcentury modern being in Black neighborhoods or created by Black architects – but there's actually quite a lot. Today's guest Jerald Cooper created the wildly popular Hood Century Instagram account seeking out Black-designed Modernist architecture, starting in his own town of Cincinnati.

#284/SCI-ARC: Shelly Kappe + Finn Kappe + Musical Guest Claire Martin Jan 23, 2023

Show notes

Los Angeles architect Ray Kappe went on his own in 1954, completing dozens of Modernist houses and teaching. After serving as Founding Chairman of the Department of Architecture at Cal Poly Pomona, Kappe resigned in 1972 and started the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-ARC) which is the Hogwarts of architecture, turned out several thousand graduates, and is considered one of the top architecture schools in the country. Ray died in his 90's in 2019, but joining us from Los Angeles is his wife and SCI-ARC co-founder Shelly Kappe and their son, Finn Kappe. Later on, jazz from the UK with Claire Martin.

#283/She Had To Have It: Mia Reed Buys a Frank Lloyd Wright in Iowa Jan 16, 2023

Show notes

If your Mom or Dad is an architect, architecture gets into your DNA whether you like it or not, and one day, it's gonna come out. For one amazing renaissance woman, an artist, writer, investment banker, film producer, tattoo artist agent, and economic development consultant, she had to go all the way to Iowa to buy her dream house - by Frank Lloyd Wright - and now she owns it, at least legally. As all Wright owners eventually discover, pretty soon the house owns you. Joining us is the new buyer of Frank Lloyd Wright's Alsop House in Oskaloosa Iowa, Mia Reed, daughter of famed Florida/North Carolina architect Chuck Reed.

#282/Architect Stephen Ehrlich + Musical Guest Laura Fygi Jan 09, 2023

Show notes

Joining us today is Los Angeles architect Steven Ehrlich of Ehrlich Yahai Rhee Chaney. Just like we preserve Wright and Neutra and Schindler and Lautner now, in the future we'll be working to save Modernist houses by this 40-person firm, honored with over 150 awards including the AIA National Firm Award and 9 national AIA design awards. Later on in the show, music with Dutch jazz vocalist Laura Fygi!

#281/Chicago's Lee Bey + Grillin' with Greg Sages of the Glass House Jan 02, 2023

Show notes

Kicking off things for 2023 is Lee Bey, Chicago architecture critic, photographer for the new book Who Is the City For? with Blair Kamin, and the author of Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago's South Side. Later on, we turn up the heat with grillmaster Greg Sages, also the Executive Director of The Philip Johnson Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut.

#280/Modernism + Diplomacy: Angel Dizon + Mina Chow + Musical Guest Oleta Adams Dec 26, 2022

Show notes

Since the 1950's, the US Government has hired Modernist architects like Edward Durell Stone, John Johansen, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Richard Neutra, and more recently Kieran Timberlake to design US Embassies all over the world. Modernism most clearly expresses the idea of freedom and these buildings are a showcase for America. But as Dr. Phil might say, "how's that working for us?" Joining us are Angel Dizon, who supervised $2B worth of construction projects for the US State Department and is now with the GSA - and returning podcast guest Mina Chow, architecture professor at USC and producer of the documentary Face of a Nation: What Happened to the World's Fair? Later on, musical guest Oleta Adams.

#279/Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree: Erin Sterling Lewis + Utopias with Sarah Moser + Special Musical Guest Brenda Lee Dec 19, 2022

Show notes

It's our holiday show on USModernist Radio! Co-hosting with George and Tom is Raleigh architect Erin Sterling Lewis, with McGill University professor Sarah Moser on glamourous Modernist fantasy cities we drool about in glossy architecture magazines, and later on, special musical guest, the legendary Brenda Lee, to rock us yet again around the Christmas tree!

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