News Editor: Ron Gallagher

Newsletter Staff: Virginia Faust, George Smart

Send a quick note to Ron Gallagher at [email protected].

• Need more room in your home, attic, basement, office, or oh-so-expensive storage unit? We accept donations of Modernist furniture, contemporary art, architecture and design magazines, and architecture coffee-table-style books. What could be easier? We come pick things up, and you likely get a tax deduction. 

• Sponsorship/Underwriting: Connect your service, product, or company to USModernist's 33,000 weekly Modernist subscribers. Contact George Smart, 919.740.8407.

• Where There's a Will There's a Way: As USModernist heads into its 3rd decade, we are fielding inquiries on gifts and bequests towards a permanent endowment. Make a declaration that endures beyond your lifetime to document and preserve Modernist houses - or honor a person that shares that passion. Many options are available. Please reach out to George Smart, 919.740.8407.

Go back in time to 1962 as we stay at the USModernist Compound, aka the swanky Hotel Skylark. We take over the entire place, plus you get event admissions, exclusive private tours, eye-popping Hollywood-style parties at fabulous houses, breakfast every day, and a walkable location to downtown Palm Springs. Only 13 places left! Check your calendar, check with your partner, and act quickly. See you by the pool! Details and tickets.

Raleigh-area Modernist House Tour, Saturday, September 9.

Details. SOLD OUT! Join the waiting list.

Not all Frank Lloyd Wright homes cost millions. In Chicago, you can buy an 1895 townhouse that was one of Wright's first independent commissions. The Edward C. Waller Apartments are listed for $75,000. The buyer will spend way more than that to rebuild the gutted interior.

Frank Lloyd Wright's 1956 Tiranna in New Canaan CT has almost 8,000 square feet on 14 acres and a price tag of $8M. The Noroton River (more like a stream) runs through the beautiful property. USModernist has visited, and it's going to need some work, but the place is pretty spectacular.

And in the middle between $75K and $8M, Frank Lloyd Wright's 1955-designed Randall and Harriett Fawcett House on 76 acres in Los Banos CA, with a reduced price of $3.8M.

Do it right the first time: The renovation of the Walter Netsch-designed chapel at the US Air Force Academy chapel in Colorado Springs CO will see installation of an aluminum waterproofing element scrapped during the 1962 construction in favor of cheaper caulking, which failed again and again.

September 19, 7pm ET, on Zoom. Having your Modernist house on the National Register does nothing legally to protect it from demolition. Neither does having a famous architect, local or state historic designation, or getting it published. At best, you can get a delay, but the bulldozers can't be fended off for long.

The only way to assure a house is not destroyed is through a preservation easement – essentially a homeowner's association for one house.

Join Cathleen Turner of Preservation North Carolina and George Smart of NCModernist as they share the 1-2-3's to assure your mid-20th-century Modernist house makes it to the mid-21st-century. Not in North Carolina? No worries, preservation easements work in every state. Free, register here. You'll get a Zoom link upon registration.

A 2006 elevated Modernist house in the Santa Monica Mountains of Agoura Hills CA is for sale for a little less than $3M. It was designed by architect Eilis Gelman.

Open Space presents a video tour of Philip Johnson's 1949 Glass House.

Join us! Mod Squad membership gets you all kinds of benefits and provides financial support for the documentation, preservation, and promotion of residential Modernist architecture. Details.

Elizabeth-Ann Campbell Knapp designed the house at left in Princeton NJ in 1955 for architect Otto Kolb. Now, Kolb's daughter, Michelle Kolb of Kolb Architects in New York City, has put it on he market for a shade under $1.7M. Three miles away, a home that Otto Kolb designed four years later (right) is for sale for about $1.2M.

Richard Crowther designed this 1957 Denver CO house, on the market now with an asking price of $2.25M.

For $23M, you can get Howard Hughes's LA mansion (which you'll recognize from The Aviator). Not Modernist, but pretty cool digs.

When architecture libraries want to recover valuable shelf space but find it painful to see architecture and design magazines thrown away, even if they’ve not been accessed for decades, the USModernist Library can help.  So far, libraries and collectors and design firms have shipped us over 4.2 million pages.

Let us help you free up shelf space and give these magazines new, text-searchable, online life – and world access. Here are the magazines and issues we need. We pay shipping - and you help the world get free, searchable, downloadable content for the first time. Contact George Smart, 919.740.8407.

• A new monthly column in Dwell online, called Legacy, featuresWhy Do Homes by Modern Masters Keep Getting Torn Down? Exhibit number a 1 is the Geller House on Long Island NY by Marcel Breuer. Now it's a tennis court.

• The University of California Santa Barbara's Architecture and Design Collection is celebrating its 60th anniversary with nearly 2 million items in its collection of architectural plans, blueprints and other drawings, and papers by dozens of architects and designers.

• From The Guardian: Will AI wipe out architects?

• Doing research on Modernist houses or architects? Discover USModernist's Resources page, including detailed reports, surveys, databases, and organizations.

• MSN posted a rundown from fancypantshomes.com of what its editors called "13 of our all-time favorite Midcentury Modern houses."

• A photo-filled story by the Australian Broadcasting Co. (ABC) celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Sydney Opera House.

• Check out this photo tour of great neon signs put together by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

• Chicago's Studio Gang architecture firm has been selected to design an expansion to the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock AR.

• Architecture historian Jean-Luis Cohen has died at the age of 74. He taught at New York University.

Available September 26. Making Architecture: The Work of John McAslan, written by Kenneth Frampton, Alan Powers, Kenneth Powell, Chris Foges, Elizabeth Farrelly, and Marwa El Mubark.

Discover the work of architect John McAslan, one of Britain’s most respected architectural practices, and analyzes the culture of a studio that has made a remarkable contribution to public transit architecture for four decades. See projects from Central and Waterloo stations in Sydney and ten new stations for Delhi Metro to the transformation of King’s Cross station in London; from the sensitive restoration of the Modern Movement De La Warr Pavilion in the UK to the new Doha Mosque and Msheireb Museums in Qatar. Pre-order.

September 9: AIA Triangle House Tour, Wake County. Details and tickets.

August 26: MAK Center self-guided summer house tour, Silver Lake neighborhood, Los Angeles. Schedule and ticket info

September 21: Chapel Hill Preservation presents NCModernist's George Smart speaking on Mayberry Modernism. Details TBA.

September 23 - December 17: From Within: Helena Arahuete Exhibition, UC Santa Barbara. Details.

October 4-6: Preservation North Carolina 2023 Conference, Durham NC. NCModernist's George Smart will speak about Mayberry Modernism on Wednesday afternoon. Details and tickets.

October 6-8: DOCOMOMO-US Cape Cod Modernist House Tour. Tickets and details.

October 10-21: Outside the Box: Modern and Contemporary Houses in Riverside, Riverside CA, tour, photo exhibition, panel discussion. Details

October 14: La Jolla Modernism Tour. Tickets and details.

October 14-15: Eichler Home Tour in San Mateo CA. Tickets and details.

October 14, 2pm: Circle Square Triangle: The Architecture of Myron Goldfinger, opens at the New Canaan Museum, New Canaan CT. Coordinated by Mitchell Algus, the exhibition on Myron Goldfinger, the celebrated architect who designed geometric Modernist houses around New York, includes models plus drawings and photographs. USModernist's George Smart will moderate a panel sharing the work and importance of Goldfinger's celebrated career. Details TBA. Listen to USModernist Radio's interview with Goldfinger.

October 14-22: Atlanta Design Festival Architecture Tour and the Creative Futures Conference, October 14 and 15. Details and tickets.

October 18: Preservation Mecklenburg 2023 Dinner, Charlotte NC. NCModernist's George Smart will speak that evening about Charlotte Modernism. Details TBA.

October 19-22: Modernism Week Preview Weekend. Details and tickets.

October 20-21: New Canaan CT Modernism Weekend. Details.

October 26: AIA East Tennessee, Knoxville TN, featuring a talk by USModernist's George Smart. Details TBA.

November 2-5: Sarasota MOD Weekend, celebrating Victor A. Lundy, who turned 100 in February.

November 3-5, Tours of Frank Lloyd Wright's Auldbrass Plantation in Yemassee SC. Tickets.

November 19: Galloway Ridge Retirement Community: NCModernist's George Smart speaking on Mayberry Modernism. Details TBA.

January 11-June 16, 2024: Albert Frey: Innovative Modernist. Palm Springs Art Museum Architecture and Design Center. Curated by Brad Dunning. Details TBA.

Vishaan Chakrabarti is the Founder and creative director of practice for Architecture and Urbanism, where he leads the firm’s growing global portfolio of cultural, institutional, and public projects. His latest book is A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America. Missy Wood is the founder and CEO of FORMUS, a virtual reality platform for the design and building community. She’s leading FORMUS to cut costs in the construction process through the power of extended virtual reality. Returning podcast guest Sharon Prince is the CEO and founder of Grace Farms Foundation, whose interdisciplinary, humanitarian mission is to pursue peace through nature, the arts, justice, community, and faith. Sharon has shepherded Grace Farms through ten-plus years of growth —including their world-class building designed by SANAA in New Canaan CT that serves as the heart of the foundation. In 2020, Grace Farms launched the Design for Freedom program — devoted to eliminating forced labor in supply chains. Wrapping up, architect Jody Brown recalls his internship.  

US Modernist Radio is underwritten by Diane Bald and The Budman Family, restoring significant architecture in Toronto, Los Angeles, Malibu, and Palm Springs. New to podcasts? You can listen to USModernist Radio on any major podcast platform or through any computer.

The News & Observer's Josh Shaffer took a look at some of the architecture lost as Raleigh grows and grows, including the Eduardo Catalano House, left; Harrelson Hall at North Carolina State University, center, designed by Terry Waugh; and the Garland Jones Building, right. Some small towns couldn't afford to demolition, Shaffer wrote, "But Raleigh, with state government as built-in industry, could always spare a dollar for the wrecking ball." (Reading the whole article may require a subscription.)

North Carolina Realtors and owners of NC Modernist houses can now list - for sale or for rent - on our new completely free NCModernist database. Listings limited to detached single family Modernist houses, old or new, but the house must be in North Carolina. Details.

Got a great Modernist house that's not selling? How would you like 60 people or more (up to 200) to come by and see it one Saturday? We can do that for you, free. Contact George Smart, [email protected].

Vacancy, not development, is the enemy of mid-century Modernist houses. Preserve and protect the architecture you love by notifying us when North Carolina houses go vacant or on the market.

Where are all the North Carolina listings? They're on our NCModernist For Sale/Rent database.

Realtors and owners can list their NC Modernist houses for sale or rent there for free, and you can browse there anytime you like! Submissions are subject to approval: single family Modernist houses only, they can be old or new, the architect or designer can be from anywhere, but the house must be in North Carolina.

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