Watergate has come to mean scandal, usually but not always, political. The gate part is used as a suffix for other scandals in everything from sports to entertainment to media.  Along with co-host Erin Sterling Lewis, winner of the 2018 AIA Young Architects Awards, host George Smart welcomes Joe Rodota, author of THE WATERGATE, a history of the iconic Washington DC building and some of its most famous residents. Rodota served as a writer and communications manager in the Reagan White House and as an aide to California Governors Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  He has written for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post and other publications.  

#82/Watergate, the Building: Joseph Rodota

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Way back in 1987, New York Institute of Technology architects Michael Schwarting and Frances Campani saved the 1931 Aluminaire House from destruction, and rebuilt it.  Then they had to take it apart.  Now nearly 40 years later, Aluminaire House reached it’s final resting place at the Palm Springs Art Museum, visible today on the museum grounds.  Recorded poolside at Modernism Week,  you will hear about this visionary house, designed by Albert Frey and Lawrence Kocher, and Aluminaire’s journey from a private Long Island estate to the New York Institite of Technology to Palm Springs.  Later on from the studio, we chat with architectural photographer Robin Hill. 

#349/Aluminaire:  Frances Campani + Michael Schwarting + Architecture Photographer Robin Hill

Joining the show are three documentary filmmakers bravely capturing architects and architecture on film.  Making these movies is an incredible labor of love; it takes a tremendous amount of work and time, often years, you’re fundraising continually, production is expensive, even when done on the cheap, and the financial reward at the end of all that, well, let’s say you could do better working a couple of months under the golden arches.  That’s why these folks are our heroes and heroines.  We’ll talk to Louise Lemoine of Beka and Lemoine, Denise Zmekhol, and Simon Mark-Brown. 

#348/Architecture Documentaries: Louise Lemoine + Denise Zmekhol + Simon Mark Brown

From the great postwar transatlantic liners to the sleek Scandinavian cruise ships of the 1970s, to Captain Stuebing and the Love Boat, ships and private yachts are also design showcases that featured edgy, trendsetting architecture. Maritime historian and art dealer Peter Knego and yacht owner Brian Biggott joins George poolside at Modernism Week to talk about nautical Modernism. Later on, from the studio, music from the next generation of the Dave Brubeck dynasty, his son Chris Brubeck, who grew up in a Modernist house. 

#347/Maritime Modernism: Peter Knego + Brian Biggott + Musical Guest Chris Brubeck

In May of 1950, a young man attended a packed lecture by Frank Lloyd Wright in the then-new Reynolds Coliseum at NC State in Raleigh NC.  It was the largest architecture lecture ever in North Carolina.  He was also witness to the construction of the 1954 Catalano House, sadly destroyed in 2001. Today George talks with architect Truman Newberry, now in his 90’s.  And later on, music with the charming and mindful Julianna Raye. 

#346/He Saw Frank Lloyd Wright in 1950: Architect Truman Newberry + Musical Guest Julianna Raye

Recorded poolside at the Hotel Skylark during Modernism Week in Palm Springs, prolific architect and architectural historian Alan Hess talks about California architect Irving Gill, who was doing Modernism way back in 1905; plus Erin Ellwood, daughter of Craig Ellwood, on her father’s singular legacy. Later, back in the studio, music with the enchanting Lucy Woodward. 

#82/Watergate, the Building: Joseph Rodota

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