USModernist Radio - Architecture You Love

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#269/Edward Killingsworth: Kelly Sutherlin McLeod + Musical Guest Laura Windley Oct 10, 2022

Show notes

Edward Killingsworth graduated from USC in 1940 and was the most prolific creator of Case Study Houses – a project sponsored by Arts and Architecture Magazine to provide affordable housing for returning WWII soldiers and their families. These architects included Richard Neutra, Charles and Ray Eames, Pierre Koenig, Rodney Walker, and the fast and furious Craig Ellwood, among others. Killingsworth, who died in 2004, won 42 AIA award and was campus architect for Cal State Long Beach for more than 40 years. Today's guest knew Killingsworth well and honeymooned in one of his hotels, the Kapalua Bay Hotel in Maui, sadly destroyed in 2006. Architect Kelly Sutherlin McLeod of Long Beach specializes in historic preservation projects, working on buildings by Richard Neutra and Ed Killingworth, among many others. She also bought his office! Later on, swing jazz with musical guest Laura Windley.

#268/Colin Flavin + Justin Beal + Special Musical Guest Toni Tennille + Our Last Minutes with Louisa Whitmore Oct 03, 2022

Show notes

Colin Flavin, founder of Flavin Architects, has been building modern houses in New England for more than 30 years. An avid sketch artist and an MIT grad, Colin spoke at Modernism Week on East Coast modernist residential architecture and its impact on community design.

Author and artist Justin Beal went to Yale and USC and his art is included in the permanent collections of the Albright Knox Museum, the Hammer Museum, and the LA Museum of Contemporary Art. Now a professor at Hunter College, Justin's most recent project is Sandfuture, a look at life and work of Minoru Yamasaki, who came to fame through the Lambert-St. Louis airport and his most heralded creation, the original World Trade Center twin towers in New York City.

Later on, we visit with pop and jazz superstar Toni Tennille, the next Dolly Levi, and then sadly, our last segment with TikTok design critic Louisa Whitmore, as she leaves the show to attend University and a bright promising future.

#267/Architect David Thompson + Musical Guest Louise Cappi + A Few Minutes with Louisa Whitmore Sep 26, 2022

Show notes

Going back as far as Neutra and Schindler, it has always been hard as an architect to specialize in houses - and even harder to specialize in Modernist houses. Clients, even the most forward-thinking, collaborative, affluent clients, are time-consuming - when for the same amount of time you could design a 120,000 square foot office building for a much bigger fee. So those architects who are prolific with modernist houses and do it well are hard to find - and we love'em. Toshiko Mori, Annabelle Selldorf, Rick Joy, and past podcast guests Tom Kundig and Will Bruder are in this league, and with them, today's guest - architect and furniture designer David Thompson of Assembledge+ in Los Angeles. The son of architect Richard Thompson, David worked for Syndesis and Lorcan O'Herlihy before establishing Assembledge+ in 1997. David's houses are classic California Modernism, and if you want him to design your new house, lure him with sushi and a freshly-made Manhattan. Later on, musical guest Louise Cappi and a few minutes with TikTok design critic Louisa Whitmore.

#266/Architect Eddie Jones + Landscape Architect Signe Nielsen Sep 19, 2022

Show notes

Architect Eddie Jones is founder of Jones Studio, based in Phoenix AZ. He began practice in 1979, starting out with a T-square, some pencils, and a desk in his Ralph Haver-designed house. His book, Jones Studio House: Sensual Modernism, looks back on Eddie's quiet yet influential forty-year career through photos and personal stories.

Award-winning landscape architect Signe Nielsen designed the amazing landscape of Little Island at Pier 55 in New York City, a magnificent "floating park" above the Hudson River that opened in May 2021. As founding principal of Matthews Nielsen Landscape Architects, Signe has spent more than 25 years reinvigorating modern urban spaces, including midcentury icons such as the Lincoln Center and the TWA Hotel. She is a professor of urban design and landscape architecture at Pratt and is past president of the New York City Public Design Commission.

#265/Brand Saarinen: Author Eva Hagberg + Saarinen's Secretary, Ruth Clements Pudists Sep 12, 2022

Show notes

Eero Saarinen, who died in 1961, is now one of the most well-known and respected Modernist architects in history, famous for the St. Louis Arch, the TWA Terminal at JFK, Dulles Airport, and many other innovative projects. More that about any other architect, his work signaled an optimistic future, a sweeping beautiful, curvy future that was going to require, as the song would say decades later, shades. But Saarinen wasn't always so well-known, and for about eight years before his death, there was one incredibly smart and talented woman who built and managed Saarinen's reputation into the mega-star he is today. We are joined by author Eva Hagberg, with the new book When Eero Met His Match: Aline Louchheim Saarinen and the Making of an Architect. And later, somewhat miraculously, we found Ruth Clements Pudists, Eero Saarinen's secretary, still in her 90's. With a memory better than any of us, she was there during the growth of the Saarinen practice and made arrangements with Aline when he died.

#264/Modernism Florida + Cuba + San Diego: Charles Phoenix + Monty Freeman + Keith York Sep 05, 2022

Show notes

Today we travel to three sunny destinations featured at this year's Modernism Week lectures: Florida, Cuba, and San Diego.

The New York Times calls Charles Phoenix "the King of Retro" for his spirited and hilarious slide shows celebrating the midcentury American lifestyle. He started collecting vintage Kodachrome slides in the 1990s and has been giving talks and creating colorful coffee table books, a YouTube video series of classic car joyrides, and fun double decker bus tours during Modernism Week. 90 miles south of Florida, there's Cuba. The US can't quite decide whether we're still mad at Cuba, but the architecture lives on and architect Monty Freeman knows all about it. An award-winning New York architect who has repurposed timeless, modern spaces around the world, Monty is an expert on Cuban architecture and leads architectural tours when the US allows it. Keith York buys and sells architect-designed homes in San Diego. He created the Modern San Diego website to help the community understand the area's rich architectural heritage and recently curated the exhibit Frank Lloyd Wright's Legacy in San Diego. He is working on a book about architect Sim Bruce Richards.

#263/Voice of Reason: Melissa DelVecchio of RAMSA + Musical Guest Paul Marinaro Aug 29, 2022

Show notes

Earlier this year, our friends the Classicists gathered to discuss traditional and classical architecture. As the day unfolded, Modernism was predictably and continually pounded as the cause of all kinds of awful consequences on humanity. In football the referee would blow the whistle at this point for piling on. Then one lone voice of reason stood up. Today we welcome Melissa Delvecchio of Robert A. M. Stern Architects, or RAMSA, and later musical guest Paul Marinaro.

#262/Desert Modernism: Erik Rosenow + Kathryn McGuire + Christopher Domin + A Few Minutes with Louisa Whitmore Aug 22, 2022

Show notes

Like so many people, Erik Rosenow moved to Palm Springs for his love of midcentury architecture. He bought a 1959 Donald Wexler-designed house in El Rancho Vista Estates, founded a neighborhood community organization, and became President of the Palm Springs Preservation Foundation, where he's still on the Board. He now lives in a 1970s brutalist townhome attributed to William Cody. Erik is the author of The Architecture of Desert Leisure, with wonderful vintage photographs and advertisements to honor condos, the buildings that like Rodney Dangerfield, don't get much respect. Judith Chafee studied at Yale under architect Paul Rudolph. In 1959 she was the first woman to win the Koppers Architectural Student Design Competition - however, the award ceremony was held in a men's club and Chafee had to go through the kitchen to receive the plaque. She received a BA and MA in architecture from Yale in 1960 as the only woman in her class and worked for firms such as Eero Saarinen, Paul Rudolph, Edward Larrabee Barnes, and Walter Gropius. Notably she worked on the TWA building at JFK. She moved back to her roots in Tucson to start her own firm.

Author Kathryn McGuire is an architect based in southern Arizona and worked with Judith Chafee for over 20 years. McGuire and Christopher Domin, who you may know was co-author of Paul Rudolph: The Florida Houses, wrote the award-winning book Powerhouse: The Life and Work of Judith Chafee. Later, a few minutes with TikTok-famous design critic, Louisa Whitmore.

#261/Architect Al Beadle in Phoenix: John Anderson + Alison King Aug 15, 2022

Show notes

Today we're talking about Phoenix, Arizona, home of Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West, Paolo Soleri's Arcosanti, Modernist architect Al Beadle, and the world's worst-named golf tournament, the Waste Management Open. Joining us is Phoenix architect John Anderson of 180 Degrees and legendary founder of Modern Phoenix.net, historian and preservationst Alison King.

#260/About Modernism Week and Palm Springs: Gary Johns + Michelle Boudreau + Steven Keylon + Deiter Crawford Aug 08, 2022

Show notes

Modernism Week in Palm Springs is a world-famous event but once you're there you can see how important it is to local people, economy, and preservation movement. Modernism Week began in 2006 as an offshoot of the Palm Springs Modernism Show & Sale, which continues, and the annual Palm Springs Art Museum Architecture & Design Council Symposium, which did not. In February 2020, right before COVID, attendance was estimated at 162,000 across 375 events with people from all 50 and 25 countries, including our favorite guys and gals, Australian, who fly a long way to attend each year. We'll talk with Modernism Week board members Gary Johns and Michelle Boudreau, Palm Springs historian Steven Keylon, and Urban Palm Springs CEO Deiter Crawford.

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