#463/Will Bruder + Alex Josephson + Greg Case + Off Grid with Suzy Cash

On this episode, Ellen Mirro and Howard Miller of Studio TJP; then Dominic Bradbury, author of a new book on the style we all love to love, Nordic modernism.  Next Andy Cohen: a magician, business strategist, and NYU professor who argues that architects and illusionists are in exactly the same business. Last to bat, musical guest, Steve Holt, a Montreal jazz pianist who gave up Wall Street and won a Juno nomination. 

Will Bruder is a celebrated architect that never went to architecture school, but he became one of the most respected architects in America through apprenticing to Paolo Soleri and Gunnar Birkerts.  Alex Josephson quit London's most prestigious architecture program mid-degree and struck out on his own. Greg Case isn't an architect at all — he's an ad guy who out-researched the professionals and rescued a forgotten modernist from obscurity. And Suzy Cash has a graduate degree and a résumé from one of the best firms in the South, yet she traded it for an off-grid life built with her own hands. 

On today's episode, international architect Patrik Schumacher, CEO of Zaha Hadid Architects;  Elias Tabache shares beautifully shot house videos of his Open Space platform, and later, musical guest Karrin Allyson.  

We're revisiting conversations with two special guests who have passed away since these interviews were recorded — architect Paul Rudolph's partner Ernst Wagner and Frank Lloyd Wright's grandson, architect Eric Lloyd Wright.  Ernst Wagner died in 2024 at 81. A Swiss exchange student who came to New York in 1970, he met architect Paul Rudolph and the two became lifelong partners both in architecture and in business, co-founding the Modulightor lighting company and building the landmark Modulightor Building on East 58th Street. After Rudolph's death, Ernst spent nearly three decades keeping that legacy alive, founding what has become the Paul Rudolph Institute and opening this iconic building to the public several times a month under the leadership of CEO Kelvin Dickinson.  

In another of our wildly popular series, Children of Genius, we talk with family of famous architects, starting with Jennifer Lapidus, granddaughter of Morris Lapidus who reshaped Miami with hotels like the Fontainebleau. Next, Jenny Jacks Shreve, daughter of Arkansas architect Ernie Jacks, who worked on the Kennedy Center with Edward Durell Stone and the Case Study Houses with Craig Ellwood.  Later, returning musical guest, Stacey Kent, one of the most noted jazz vocalists in the world. 

Acclaimed architect Tom Phifer builds around light, with three decades designing buildings that make walls feel invisible.  Author Alastair Gordon has written more than 28 books and knows all the midcentury Modern houses in the Hamptons that shaped American architecture.  Jeanie Bryson spent decades as a jazz vocalist, sharing stages with Grover Washington Jr., Kenny Burrell, and Etta Jones.  Having a famous but also secret father helped, yet losing her husband and musical partner had her step away from performing for years.  Now she's back, and we're lucky to have her.

Elizabeth Gordon was editor-in-chief of House Beautiful.  In April 1953 she published an influential and controversial editorial that rocked the architecture world, presenting Modernism as uncomfortable, impractical, and like communism a threat to American cultural values. We'll talk with author Monica Penick, author of the definitive book on Gordon, 2001's Tastemaker.  Next up, Alison Fisher just closed a wildly successful exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago on Bruce Goff, an architect who made Frank Lloyd Wright look restrained. Wrapping up, Naama Gheber is a jazz vocalist with four albums and a voice critics have compared to Peggy Lee. 

On this special edition of USModernist taped live earlier this year at the Onera Foundation in New Canaan CT,  we explore diplomacy through Modernist architecture with three guests: Dublin architect Cormac Murray gives a talk on John Johansen's US Embassy in Dublin; legendary photographer Norman McGrath, who shot that building soon after it opened, and architect Christen Johansen, son of John Johansen, discusses family legacy.  Laurence Lafforgue of the Onera Foundation hosts.

New York architect Tom Gluck of GLUCKplus, son of architect Peter Gluck, takes us behind the scenes of projects from prefab high-rises in Manhattan to his Tower House in upstate New York. Nick Ferrell brings the history of Modernist lighting design in Modeline of California: Pioneer of Modern Lighting, with lamps that have inspired designers for decades. And freshly-minted Pulitzer prize winner Mark Lamster updates the endangered IM Pei-designed City Hall in Dallas.  Later on, special musical guest, the Grammy-winning Miami singer Jon Secada. 

In Bakersfield CA, David Coffey preserves two houses one by Neutra, and one by Wright, but today we talk about his passion, Modernism in Uruguay.  In Los Angeles, Cindy Olnick stewards the Neutra Institute. Later on, jazz duo Lenore Raphael and Chris Hodgkins reunite for their joyful new album, Pennies From Heaven.