Kate Wagner

Architecture Critic

@mcmansionhell

Kate Wagner is The Nation’s architecture critic and a journalist based in Chicago and Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Single-Stair Layouts Are Not Going to Fix the Housing Crisis

Single-Stair Layouts Are Not Going to Fix the Housing Crisis Single-Stair Layouts Are Not Going to Fix the Housing Crisis

They’re a good idea, but they’re not going to liberate us from capitalism.

Mar 31, 2023 / Kate Wagner

Bicyclists Deserve the Right to Free Movement

Bicyclists Deserve the Right to Free Movement Bicyclists Deserve the Right to Free Movement

US infrastructure is unnecessarily dangerous for bike riders. There’s a better way.

Mar 28, 2023 / Kate Wagner

You Can’t Even Tell Who’s Rich Anymore

You Can’t Even Tell Who’s Rich Anymore You Can’t Even Tell Who’s Rich Anymore

Billionaires dress like the guy next door, which elides the fact of our ever-worsening inequality.

Mar 24, 2023 / Kate Wagner

We Cannot Countenance Windowless Bedrooms

We Cannot Countenance Windowless Bedrooms We Cannot Countenance Windowless Bedrooms

Sunlight is not an amenity; it’s a basic human necessity.

Mar 21, 2023 / Kate Wagner

DALL-E's passable attempt at a modernist apartment block.

No, AI Is Not “Disrupting” Architecture No, AI Is Not “Disrupting” Architecture

It’s just making it that much less interesting.

Mar 17, 2023 / Kate Wagner

Liberating Our Homes From the Real Estate–Industrial Complex

Liberating Our Homes From the Real Estate–Industrial Complex Liberating Our Homes From the Real Estate–Industrial Complex

Having a personal aesthetic at home has become financially detrimental.

Mar 13, 2023 / Kate Wagner

Why Does Utopian Architecture Suck?

Why Does Utopian Architecture Suck? Why Does Utopian Architecture Suck?

Our plans to rethink the built environment keep going awry.

Jul 14, 2021 / Feature / Kate Wagner

Reckoning With the Man Who Sold Architecture to the Masses

Reckoning With the Man Who Sold Architecture to the Masses Reckoning With the Man Who Sold Architecture to the Masses

A new biography explores how Philip Johnson’s career transformed architecture into the celebrity-obsessed and market-driven field it’s become. 

Jan 29, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Kate Wagner

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