Hasta La Ideas

Before this writer bids you adieu and will see you in another decade, we thought we’d do another year end list (but always just the best of the best, we continue to promise you). First up comes former Sun Times critic, brilliant photographer, and general well-connected, man-about-town, Lee Bey, and his overview of Chicago architecture from 2000-2009, as he guest blogs for NPR affiliate WBEZ. If you live here, it’s incredible to look back and see how much happened in just these few short years (Millennium Park, IIT’s upgrades, the Trump Building) but also how much came down or never happened at all (among the most high-profile: The Robert Taylor Homes and the Chicago Spire, respectively). Even if you don’t live here, it’s probably a familiar template most anyone can see repeated nearly everywhere. Second, the LA Times‘ Christopher Hawthorne has filed his picks for the paper’s Faces to Watch in 2010 feature, and there are some surprises therein. Notably, his selection of Ray LaHood (preparing to spend billions of government funds on national projects like high-speed rail) and his pick of Mexico City-based Michel Rojkind and UK-based Thomas Heatherwick as the next possible big names in architecture. So while you read up on both the past and future, we wish you all a very happy New Year’s and here’s to hoping 2010 has lots more we can share with you. Thanks for all your support.

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