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Zach Mortice

@zachmortice.bsky.social
1.1K followers 257 following 878 posts

Chicago design journalist and critic, @bloomberg.com and elsewhere. In one of those phases where I can’t decide whether it matters what buildings look like or not. zachmortice.com

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Reposted by Zach Mortice
Aria Winningson @aria.labeledrude.online · 14/10/2026
happy sickos day to all who celebrate
Wikipedia page for "Sickos"
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 12h
Read devil’s bargain. Excellent meme choice tho.
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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 12h
If you trust me enough to give me your phone number, I will abuse this trust by texting you whenever I find a new Jens Jensen
Screenshot of a set of texts I sent a friend. First is a screenshot of part of an article about a Jens Jensen who worked for Rookwood in the late 1920s. Beneath this is the George Bush second plane meme.
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 14h
Here’s a Wario-esque imposter
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 14h
The mainstream hit
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 14h
The b-side (no known photos but he did design the Hotel Guyon on the west side)
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 14h
There have been 3 (THREE!) people named “Jens Jensen” in the Midwest that do landscape/architecture stuff. This is the newest iteration.
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Commission of Dark Arts 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 15h
Actually, I don't think that it's better for your kids to live in a Hooverville than an apartment with running water.
"With all its destruction," the head of one of our greatest industries recently said to me, "the depression will not have been wholly in vain if the drift to the cities has been checked and reversed; if more Americans have learned to love the soil and found thereon, even on a half-acre plot, not only a refuge but also some measure of security.
No apartment is a fit home
for a family. To my notion even a log cabin or a tarpaper shack close to the soil may be better. Besides, mighty few Americans will be content with such shacks for long. As a matter of fact, thanks to the depression, I look for the greatest increase in home building we have ever seen just as soon as the air has cleared and the depression is gone, but not forgotten."
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Cross-laminated Tinder @nickhasthoughts.com · 09/10/2026
Grok make me Citizen Kane but it’s a vulgar roast and all the characters have mega titties
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Standplaats Kraków could really use some cash! @standplaatskrk.pl · 21/09/2026
regular sized ackman (@pleas4nt) on twitter:

"Well it's like Sun Tzu says in the Art of War: Hover over a friendly unit to see its attributes. Click on a friendly unit to command it."
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Mr. Dan Kelly @mrdankelly.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
155 years since a brilliant Irish cow decided Chicago needed to be razed, replanned, and rebuilt. And that cow's name...was Daniel Burnham.
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Not that this is good, but I’m authentically convinced that having this kind of confidence in your writing solves most of your writing problems.
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Maddie @aphextwix.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
yessss YEESSS
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Andrew Lawrence @ndrew.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
they did the thing
an october 11 2025 post from me reading: every single tech idea is like “soon our robots will be capable of playing catch with your kid, freeing you up to spend more time working on your employers’ spreadsheets”
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Leave your life in New York, go home, move into an old silk mill, start a landscape architecture firm, start tracking the snow geese and phlox. My latest, on the Lehigh Valley's come-home kid Laura Stendenfeld, and her firm Omnes. landscapearchitecturemagazine.org/omnes
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I’m not the first person to say this but we’re at a real dead end as a culture and economy when *reproducing* is a luxury consumer experience
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
They’re gonna invent a new dance rather than hiring teachers.
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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Details (former On Leong Merchants Association Building edition) Architects: Michaelsen & Rognstad, 1928
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
⬇️ describes about 80% of the economy
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Kevin Moorebidity @kevinwmoore.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
From this day on 2012: probably the most popular thing I’ve ever drawn.
TinTin discovers Edward Said.
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joe ⧉ 🍷🌊 @joetforhire.com · 29/09/2026
i saw it in a vision
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The optimization-maxxing move is to just watch this www.imdb.com/title/tt2152...
imdb.com
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
DEADWOOD AT 24 GTFO
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Polite and bashful southern Baptist pastor but his politicos are like a hyper-aggro John Brown
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
My wife just told me that when our oldest niece was born she kept wanting to call her by the name of their family dog from when she was a kid
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The machines have an exact measure of exactly what your life is worth
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The people cheering him on, clapping like seals. . .somehow even grosser
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New York Review of Architecture @nyreviewofarch.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
“Plus Pool’s boosters have presented its origin as a sort of chill parthenogenesis—a concept springing fully formed from the doldrums of 2010’s record-breaking New York summer.” James Andrew Billingsley is too cool for Plus Pool in NYRA no. 51. nyra.nyc/articles/plu...
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I’ll start worrying about AI ending humanity when the Chinese do
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David_j_roth @davidjroth.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
It's too depressing and obnoxious to write about, but virtually all of the doomy/horny AI hyperventilating is transparently displaced anxiety about our fucked climate and political situation. Even rich idiots know it's bad and being permitted to get worse. They're trying to write their own ending.
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Taulby Edmondson @taulby.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Human targets were marked by the IDF by hacking into cell phone networks. One interviewee estimated 60-70k Gazans had been marked-clearly including many, many people beyond those considered Hamas fighters-and another said it did not distinguish between kids and adults. The interviewees said the targets were hit at night when they were home with their families, who they could hear through their phones before initiating strikes. "How could you bomb when you hear a crying baby inside?" Abraham asked one of them.
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Here is some historical context for the US www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
bloomberg.com
Inside the Space-Age Bid To Build Millions of Homes in Factories
Operation Breakthrough, a 1970s federal moonshot to build 26 million homes using advanced manufacturing methods, has lessons for today’s abundance movement.
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Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · 31/07/2026
My car went rogue after I turned on cruise control and jumped out
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Neo-post eco-andean modern-brutalism architecture @theeferringer.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
A man finds Buddha in his twilight and all libs do is judge him! Sad!
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Alexander Luckmann @aluckmann.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Some excellent news, reported by @zachmortice.bsky.social: “Wedge, A new peer-reviewed scholarly architecture journal will publish the canceled Palestine issue of the Journal of Architectural Education” www.archpaper.com/2026/09/wedg...
archpaper.com
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
"I AM THE CODE" is usually something the architect says while practicing their villain laugh
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OrcGirlBoss 🐇🏹 @orc.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Gas high
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Corey Atad @coreyatad.com · 22/09/2026
“If you are staring at an example of social disorder or social inefficiency, and the left refuses to explain either why it has happened or how they will fix it, then the right gets to point at someone in the immediate area and say, ‘That’s who did it.’” crazy how much Mamdani speaks my language
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Bae Blade 🏳️‍⚧️ 🗡️ @baeblade.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Max sliders/ min sliders
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Albany Park is the most Chicago of Chicago neighborhoods and I will brook no disagreement on this matter
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Kashana @kashana.blacksky.app · 20/09/2026
Americans: oh, look, a systemic issue. I will solve it individually
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
And yes, this is a just local, administrative fix to much larger systemic issue.
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Best thing i’ve read in a month. The worst malfeasance from teachers and admins here could be avoided by democratic control of schools. In Chicago parent councils can fire principals! www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/m...
nytimes.com
In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?
A decade ago, I made a decision about my daughter’s education that I hoped would challenge New York City’s separate and unequal school system. Now 16, she thinks I made the wrong choice.
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
She only went to public schools
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
No, this is a conversation that is morally and practically necessary. There is an entire universe of privilege, exploitation, degradation, and progress behind the phrase “for political reasons”
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Thank you president Trump for keeping lefty design critics in business! 🫡
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Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Urbicide
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Josephine Riesman @josie.zone · 18/09/2026
Carrie Fisher flirtily stealing Peter Weller's glasses was possibly the sexiest a woman has ever been
Four photos of Carrie taking and wearing Peter's glasses
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Cross-laminated Tinder @nickhasthoughts.com · 19/09/2026
“Poncho Munch for Deano Bonano” is quite literally indistinguishable from the ‘Italian’ brainrot my kids say
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