Verve chats with George Smart whose non-profit, mid-century modern design and architecture website has grown into a global phenomenon and earned him the nickname, Mr Modernism.
If anywhere was to force the uninitiated to fall in love with midcentury modern architecture, it would be Frank Llyod Wright’s house, Fallingwater (see feature, page 57). Perhaps the most loved work of the legendary late architect, the World Heritage Site structure juts over a waterfall entrenched in Pennsylvanian woodland.
George Smart was so inspired by his 2007 visit to Fallingwater that he began cataloguing the modernist architecture of his home state of North Carolina on website NC Modernist (ncmodernist.org). My previous interest in modernism was very low-key,” he tells Verve via Zoom. “Then it kind of took over my body! My wife refers to this entire project as a 14-year seizure.” Such was the site’s popularity that George expanded nationwide, establishing an international modernist community along with new site US Modernist (usmodernist.org). George’s multi-award-winning non-profit organisation documents “nearly every house built and unbuilt” in the USA and serves as an archive for every major architect. Design enthusiasts can also enjoy podcasts (available on all major platforms), US Modernist Radio, and four million pages of architecture magazines (“almost every publication that ever existed!”) that have been painstakingly uploaded. There’s nothing else quite like it, and what’s more, it’s free. Little wonder that George has become known as ‘Mr Modernism’, with folks still sending him magazines by the vanload – including some more unusual offerings like National Geographic and Playboy (which are not part of the site’s magazine library), alongside the more obvious Architectural Digest.
“It’s interesting, one of the preeminent drivers of the demand for modernist furniture was Hugh Hefner because he created the iconic bachelor pad. There’s a famous Playboy issue where he assembled the great architects and designers of the time like Charles and Ray Eames, all sitting in the chairs that they had created.”
George’s main aim is to protect and preserve what are “liveable works of art”.
“They were being destroyed in record numbers between 1975 and 2005. Nobody really cared about these older, weird houses – the cachet of mid-century modern hadn’t been invented. People were tearing them down to build McMansions.”
Were there any unexpected places that you found modernist buildings, or hidden gems that stood out?
“There’s a house in Palm Springs that was designed for the same family that owned Fallingwater, except they chose Richard Neutra as the architect, because Frank Llyod Wright was notoriously di cult to work with. It passed through several hands, including Barry Manilow who didn’t quite to know what to do with it. Another couple eventually restored it so thoroughly that they persuaded the original mine to reopen for the stone to rebuild the outside walls! That house is now on the market after 20 years with its current owners for US$17 million.”
You’ve mentioned some famous architects, who are your favourite lesser-known ones?
“Outside California, not many know John Lautner, who was a most brilliant architect – the things he could do with large form concrete, turning houses into wildly successful sculptures.
Another is Craig Ellwood. He was a real bad boy – he didn’t have an architecture license, but was good looking, had a Ferrari, and was married to a Hollywood celebrity! He would hire the architects when needed and get commission after commission. Just imagine if Brad Pitt decided to go into architecture right now, people would be lining up!”
Does your passion for modernist architecture bleed into other areas of your life?
“Yes. We’ve sponsored a movie series here for the last 10 years, and I meet the producers of new architecture documentaries at the New York Architecture Design Film Festival. We curate a schedule of five or six movies every winter which is a real blast, allowing people to see films they otherwise wouldn’t see. Most of these documentaries are not available on streaming, so you must get them directly from the person who filmed them.”
“Another architect I love is Craig Ellwood. He was a real bad boy – he didn’t have an architecture license, but he was good looking, had a Ferrari, and was married to a Hollywood celebrity!”
Are there any mainstream movies you’d recommend for anyone curious about modernism?
“There’s a great film called The Lake House with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. It’s not an architecture movie per se, but the house really steals the show. On our podcast we had the architect of the house and the structural engineers who put it together. Sadly, the house had to be destroyed after filming.”
Were you surprised that there was such a massive community of mid-century fans out there?
“Absolutely. When I started, I thought it was going to be a little website for me, but immediately people started flocking to it, wanting tours, and wanting us to expand our coverage of houses. We were initially doing it just for a couple of cities near where I live and then it expanded state-wide. And then we went national in 2015. So now we document about 10,000 houses by more than 100 major architects across the country.”
You delve into the histories of the buildings too?
“It’s really quite heart-warming when folk call to share their stories. We enable people to be able to discover history of a house from the very beginning and who were the major people connected to it. They’ll know the architect right away, then can dig deeper say into our library to see if that house was ever featured in a magazine. Of course, houses by the very famous architects are in multiple magazines, so, let’s say you’re buying a Frank Lloyd Wright house – which a friend of mine is actually doing – you could find all the places that covered it. What’s really interesting is that in the magazine from, say, 1954, there’ll be ads for furniture and fixtures and appliances that probably went into the house, so now you have some source clues to pursue.”
George’s father was an architect, but he admits that he had little interest in the industry growing up. In fact, he goes as far to say that he hated it: “I had to work a couple of summers at my dad’s office. It was horrible, I didn’t understand anything that was going on and they had me operating one of these gigantic Bruning blueprint machines that was fuelled by ammonia that leaked all the time – and the smell!” Though he had few opportunities to design anything of much excitement (“mostly post o ces, grocery stores and apartments”), George says that his father also developed a love of modernism.
“Dad came along at the time when Frank Lloyd Wright was still around. Everyone wanted to be a modernist at that time, but you couldn’t find many clients who wanted to do it.”
I finish up by asking George about his childhood home. It was, he tells me, a one-storey brick ranch with “a few funky features”, nothing that you would recognise as modernist, “but a very comfortable house to grow up in”. Though his father passed away in 2003 and the house was sold, it wasn’t until around five years ago when going through some plans that George discovered it been designed by a family friend. It must be nice, I ask, to have learnt of such a personal connection with his childhood home. Absolutely it was, he recalls.
“And the house where I live now – we’ve been here for 11 years – I came up with the concept, but I’m not an architect, so I gave it to the actual professionals to design build!”
