Lynn Becker

Much more next week about this rather splendid new volume, but for now a few pics from last evening's book launch at the CAC, with co-authors Carla Bruni and illustrator Phil Thompson, for Chicago Homes: A Portrait of the City's Everyday Architecture.
www.agatepublishing.com/978157284357...

Dominion, voting firm targeted by false 2020 election claims, sold to new owner Company, which reached $787.5m defamation settlement with Fox News, becomes new entity called Liberty Vote

So Dominion Voting Systems, which won almost a billion dollars in settlements over false claims of counting irregularities, has been sold and rebranded as Liberty Vote to a Missouri firm that will finally be in position to make those false claims reality.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Long lines of marathon runners for the Bandit Running Chicago Simulation Research Center in the bowels of Tribune Tower.

I wish I had taken the time to photograph them all, but you can see the architect talk about the exhibition at the link.
www.archdaily.com/775921/ad-in...

Looking back at the first Chicago Architecture in 2016, I came across these pics of one of its most creative delights: Sou Fujimoto and team's "Architecture is Everywhere." creating architecture out of "found" everyday objects.

What’s Really Going On in Portland, According to Police Reports Protests outside an ICE facility were dwindling in size and at times ”low energy” in the days and weeks before President Trump called in troops, according to official law-enforcement logs.

“Saw 8 people out front and couldn’t even get one of them to flip me the bird,” he wrote. “Very low energy.”

A day-by-day report showing just delusional Trump's assault on Portland is. And read the comments to realize how fantasy fact-averse the MAGA trolls are.
www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Never knew that, before becoming Jeopardy champion and host, Ken Jennings did a guest shot on Perry Mason.

Trump's Polluter Playground: Fossil Fuel Insiders & Ideologues Prop Up Dirty Energy & Derail Clean Power - Public Citizen

Infamously, Donald Trump last April asked oil & gas execs for $1billion for his campaign. He settled for a little over $100 million, more than enough for him to sell out the U.S. to make his administration a wholely-owned subsidiary of Big Oil and its rapacious greed.
www.citizen.org/article/trum...

Notre Dame School of Architecture poised for global leadership through historic investment The $150 million gift represents an unprecedented commitment in the 160-year history of American architectural education. In recognition of this landmar...

They're some good money to made in construction. Walsh Construction's Mathew Walsh has just given $150 million to Notre Dame's School of Architecture. ($7.7 billion in revenue for The Walsh Group last year, up over 40% since 2022, according to Crain's)
news.nd.edu/news/matthew...

Patron Saint of the Self Park click images to see larger view If you go to St. Peter's in Rome, you see gigantic statues of the saints along the roof line.  So, just beca...

And from 2010. I remember Tim Samuelson telling me Stanley Tigerman expressed indifference to the fate of this building, but, as much as the accustomed behemoths, it's small (relatively) delights like this that give a great city its character.
arcchicago.blogspot.com/2010/09/patr...

The Architect as Zelig: Tigerman's Ceci n'est pas une reverie at the Graham, open late tonight, closes Saturday You have only through Saturday, May 19th, to view Ceci nʻest pas une rêverie: The Architecture of Stanley Tigerman at the Graham Foundatio...

It's been six years since Stanley Tigerman's passing. What I would give to hear his take on our present situation. (from 2012)
arcchicago.blogspot.com/2012/05/arch...

Deans’s Panel Lecture: Stanley Tigerman: Drawing on the Ineffable Explore Stanley Tigerman’s imaginative architectural drawings and working methods at an upcoming Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture event.

The book "Stanley Tigerman: Drawing on the Ineffable" came out in July, but IIT is having a book launch on the 27th, with a panel including Margaret McCurry, John Ronan, Iker Gil and Reed Kreloff.
arch.iit.edu/events/tiger...

Postcard From Chicago: There’s an ICE Facility in My Backyard Chicago was not a war zone when Trump’s Operation Midway Blitz began. DHS and ICE have made it one.

To revive and paraphrase a classic Richard J. Daley quote, "DHS and ICE aren't there to stop disorder; they're there to CREATE disorder."
www.vanityfair.com/news/story/c...

YouTube video by PBS NewsHour WATCH: Durbin presses Bondi for rationale behind troop deployment to Illinois

Apparatchiks like Bondi believe truculence is both shield and prophylactic. freeing them to lie, bluster and make personal attacks rather than provide answers. The calm but dogged persistence of panel members like Durbin puts their reckless evil in high relief.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FeM...

Bondi tells Durbin she wishes he "loved Chicago as much as you hate Pres. Trump" in Senate hearing Sen. Dick Durbin and Attorney General Pam Bondi traded barbs about the National Guard and Chicago, with Bondi telling Durbin she wished he "loved Chicago as much as you hate President Trump."

"I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate President Trump."

We need to come up with a new name; to call them Nazi does them too much credit. No coherent ideology, other than a rabid lust for absolute power in service to malevolent, self-enriching ends.
www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news...

Newly opened Jellycat store at Nordstrom's Northbridge.
chicago.suntimes.com/business/202...

The Long Comeback of the Erie Canal One of America’s first major public works projects is marking its 200th anniversary — and seeking a path to the future.

When I was a kid in school, the Erie Canal showed up in textbooks as a kind of historical artifact. Now I'M a kind of historical artifact, but at 250 years old, the Canal is still a spur for new development, as Timothy A. Schuler reports for Bloomberg's CityLab
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

White House Signals It May Try to Deny Back Pay to Furloughed Federal Workers

Trump's long rancid history is one of stiffing people who do work for him.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/u...

via New City, Artnet's Richard Whiddington reports on FLW's funky design for chairs at the Guggenheim's cafe - never realized, until they were finally created for the exhibition "Frank Lloyd Wright: Modern Chair Design" at the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend.
news.artnet.com/art-world/fr...

via New City, Artnet's Richard Whiddington reports on FLW's funky design for chairs at the Guggenheim's cafe - never realized, until they were finally created for the exhibition "Frank Lloyd Wright: Modern Chair Design" at the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend.
news.artnet.com/art-world/fr...

Once again LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik does the research and bring the receipts to reveal Trump's secretive drug plan will benefit few, is a major coup for Pfizer's profits, and that TrumpRX will do little more but refer users to already existing sites.
www.msn.com/en-us/money/...

This school is fighting antisemitism all wrong. Why is it working? Elon University has earned praise for creating a safe campus for Jewish students even as it enables free speech blocked by other universities.

A fascinating and hopeful article from Arno Rosenfeld in the Forward about how one southern university is combating anti-semitism while protecting free speech.
forward.com/news/antisem...

Nuages
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlLb...

Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down How Linda McMahon’s latest “compact” would do deep and permanent harm to American higher education

The "compact" Trump is forcing on nine of the country's leading university is just another extortionist shakedown to extend authoritarian control over higher education, in which "belittlement" of conservative ideas is banned.
newrepublic.com/article/2013...