George Smart

George Smart HAIA is the founder and CEO of USModernist®, the world's largest non-profit educational archive dedicated to the documentation, preservation, and promotion of Modernist residential design. A passionate advocate for Modernism, Smart has been one of the nation's leaders in raising awareness preserving this important architectural movement and his work has helped to change the way people think about modernism. He is a frequent speaker to architecture, design, preservation, real estate, and museum groups. Previously, he worked for 30 years as a management consultant with clients such as Boeing, Microsoft, Cisco, Harvard Business School, and UNC-Chapel Hill. He is one of the few to be bestowed an Honorary AIA by the American Institute of Architects.

Modernist home design is characterized by open interior floor plans with vaulted ceilings, large and numerous windows, flat or low pitch roofs, long exposed beams, extensive use of glass to bring in natural light, and unusual geometric forms. Early Modernist architects wanted to change the way people lived by making houses and objects more affordable through better materials, streamlined building, and family connectivity. Gone were formal living and dining rooms. Instead, there was a large family space where kitchen, dining, and living rooms flow into each other; and smaller private bedrooms. More than anything, Modernism creates feelings of optimism for a better and brighter future.

As host of the long-running architecture and jazz podcast "USModernist Radio", named by DWELL as the #2 architecture and design podcast, and by Atomic Ranch as #1, Smart informs, entertains, and inspires audiences to engage preservation and keep the bulldozers away.

USModernist’s intrepid team of non-profit staff and volunteers have documented over 130 major 20th century architects, researched over 20,000 Modernist houses, and scanned over 4.2 million pages of architecture magazines going back over 130 years. Smart and USModernist have won 18 honors for leadership in preservation, including the national AIA Institute Honors for Collaborative and Professional Achievement.

Smart takes The Accidental Archivist presentation on the road to design audiences, architecture conferences, art & history museums, libraries, preservation organizations, and real estate associations across the country. Corporate clients include Architectural Firms, Real Estate, and Pharmaceutical companies.