Zac Whittenburg
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Zac Whittenburg
@trailerpilot.bsky.social
440 followers 810 following 460 posts
Stockholmer, cyclist, grantmaker, shutterbug, writer, and a few other things. Posts are mine alone, he / him, reskeet ≠ “I think”
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Yes it’s cold and yes I’m fighting post-move exhaustion, sniffles, and jet lag but I made it to Stockholm and it’s so beautiful here. I almost can’t believe that I live here now. It’s like I’m dreaming. I love this city so much and I love my wonderful husband, and I’m so glad we’re finally together.
The view south across Riddarfjärden from Stockholms stadshus features colorful buildings, many with cylindrical turrets, tightly stacked atop one another along a steep, lakeside cliff. The sky above is cloudy with a few glimpses of bright blue. The water in the foreground is cool and blue-grey. Snow-covered steps lead up from the water’s edge into Riddarsholmen, one of the city of Stockholm’s smaller islands, home to the Svea hovrätt courthouse and, in the background, the openwork spire of Riddarholmskyrkan. Stockholms stadshus, or city hall, is a large brick building seen across the water from the island of Riddarsholmen. The majestic building features a tall tower capped with an open, green cupola and a spire featuring three golden crowns. In the background, to the left, is a stretch of waterfront buildings along Norr Mälarstrand on the island of Kungsholmen. This view northward along Skomakargatan and Trångsund passes Stortorget, a historic square featuring the Nobel Prize Museum. In the foreground at left is a row of Swedish flags, blue with yellow crosses, decorating a gift shop. In the background is the tall, pink clock tower of Storkyrkan, built in phases from the 13th to the 18th centuries.
January 29, 2026 at 3:07 PM
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Because I’m in the process of moving, and I’ve recently gone through all my old photos, here for your amusement are three from my days as a Cleo Parker Robinson student at the old Shorter AME Church: practicing pirouettes in 1988, with my ballet classmates around 1990, and in arabesque around 1993.
An eight-year-old boy practices pirouettes in a Denver dance studio, with three classmates behind him Fifteen young ballet students, roughly between the ages of ten and fourteen, pose together for a class portrait in a dance studio A thirteen-year-old boy practices his first arabesque while holding onto a ballet barre
January 16, 2026 at 10:03 PM
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“Monument to the Unknown Bureaucrat” in Reykjavík, Magnús Tómasson, 1994
December 30, 2025 at 3:24 PM
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Anyway, season’s greetings from DCA where my flight home has been delayed three times and almost four hours now
This photo taken at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport shows the photographer, wearing a grey suit and black overcoat, standing in front of a tall Christmas tree decorated with lights and ornaments, in front of a wall of glass windows.
December 7, 2025 at 11:21 PM
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I’ve known all year that, around the end of 2025 or early in 2026, I would be coming back to DC. I may not be back in DC for a very long time.
This photo is a centered view looking west of the United States Capitol. Two streetlights and two bright orange traffic cones frame the image, one of each on either side in the foreground. Most of this image consists of bare tree branches and an early winter sunset. The tall obelisk of the Washington Monument is in the center of the image. Visible to the left is a lamppost; to the right is another lamppost and a traffic light illuminated red. This image shows the south-facing front of the historic Carnegie Library which is now an Apple Store and home to the DC History Center. The Beaux-Arts building, dedicated in 1903, was the first of four Carnegie libraries in the District and its first desegregated public building. This image was taken looking south from the entrance to the Apple Store at the Carnegie Library in Vernon Square, Washington DC. In the center of the image is a promenade lit up with holiday lights and, in the background, the north-facing portico and dome of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
December 7, 2025 at 10:22 PM
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The occasion for this third visit was an interview at the Embassy of Sweden to the United States. Within the next two months, if all goes according to plan, I will have fully relocated from Chicago to Stockholm.
In the foreground of this photo taken on the second floor of the National Building Museum in Washington DC is a reconstruction in LEGO of the White House, with the roof missing. In the background is a reflection in glass of the atrium of the museum and the arches and columns of its wraparound, interior loggia. In this image taken from halfway down a broad staircase in Washington DC’s Judiciary Square, a woman wearing red pants and a hooded parka walks toward the Henry J. Daly Building. Visible in the foreground are a stylized, bas-relief carving of three figures and a small, west-facing portico with four square columns. The center of the image shows a tree with bare branches. This is a centered view of the symmetrical, Beaux-Arts west front of the Library of Congress in Washington DC. An American flag on a pole is visible at the top-center of the image. In the foreground are two parked cars and two people on electric bicycles. This image is a westward-looking view of the south side of the United States Capitol. At right are the Capitol rotunda and a tall tree whose leaves are deep red and ready to fall. At left are two emergency vehicles whose lights are on. In the background is the beginning of a winter sunset.
December 7, 2025 at 10:11 PM
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The first time I visited Washington DC was in November 2008. I attended the last rally of Barack Obama’s campaign in Manassas VA. The second time I visited was in November 2016, when I watched Hillary Clinton’s concession speech from a DCA concourse. My third visit was this week.
The buildings of downtown Washington DC feature a variety of materials and textures. This image shows, at left, a projected grid of horizontal and vertical, white members with a curtain wall of windows behind it and, at right, a traditionally Brutalist façade of concrete with deep-set, vertical windows. At top right is a triangle of blue sky with diaphanous clouds and an American flag on a rooftop pole. This image shows the very top of the north front of the White House in Washington DC; only the pediment and rooftop balustrade are visible. Most of the image shows wispy clouds in a blue sky and, in the foreground, an American flag at rest, hanging down along the pole to which it is attached. This image is of a continuum of five buildings in downtown Washington DC, just north of the National Mall. From left to right, there is a brick office building or hotel; a narrow building that blends Art Deco and Gothic Revival styles; a white Modernist addition to a Beaux-Arts façade; and a red brick building with a weathered, copper cornice. This is a perfectly centered and symmetrical view of the interior of the National Building Museum. Visible in the center of the image is the spout of the atrium’s fountain; on either side are two rows of enormous, Corinthian columns; and, in the background, are two stacked loggias, above which are two rows of arched windows.
December 7, 2025 at 10:00 PM
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Finally, because I was right there in the area, I walked over to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial (Gehry Partners and collaborators, 2020), where a visitor had left a bouquet of flowers for the recently departed architect, Frank Gehry 💐
A bouquet of flowers wrapped in red tissue paper lies on the ground in front of a stone tablet at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial, marking the date of its completion in 2020 and principal designer, Frank Gehry, who died in December 2025. From the National Park Service website: “Under the design direction of architect Frank Gehry, artist Tomas Osinski created a stainless-steel tapestry for the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial. The tapestry depicts the Pointe du Hoc promontory of France’s Normandy coastline during peacetime and serves as a symbol of the peace Eisenhower sought and won as Supreme Allied Commander during World War II and then maintained and nurtured as 34th president.” From the National Park Service website: “On the right side of the memorial core, Eisenhower as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force during World War II is commemorated by a bronze heroic-sized statue with sculptures of his soldiers inspired by the famous photograph with the 101st Airborne Division before their jump into France. Behind the sculptures is a bas relief depicting the Normandy landings on D-Day, June 6, 1944.” The name “DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER” is etched into stone below a partial view of the Eisenhower Memorial’s mesh “tapestry” panel depicting the Normandy coastline. Visible in the background is the front of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building (Faulkner, Kingsbury & Stenhouse with Chatelain, Gauger & Nolan, 1961).
December 7, 2025 at 3:51 PM
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As many others before me have noted, it’s disheartening in this particular moment to be unable to read the inscription “equal justice under law” on the pediment of the Supreme Court of the United States (Cass Gilbert, Jr. and John R. Rockart after Cass Gilbert, 1935)
Scaffolding, mesh, and other materials temporarily obscure the West Pediment of the Supreme Court of the United States, an imposing and symmetrical, Classical building with eight columns supporting a stone pediment carved by artist Robert I. Aitken. Two broad flights of stairs in the foreground lead to the building’s entrance.
December 7, 2025 at 3:36 PM
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It felt good in December 2025 to stand in the same spot at 4th Street NW and Madison Drive NW in Washington, DC where, in January 1989, my dad stood and took a photograph of the East Building of the National Gallery of Art (I. M. Pei & Partners, 1978)
In a photograph from January 1989, a windowless, stone-clad corner of the East Building of the National Gallery of Art rises up from the bottom of the frame, acutely angled and sharp like a knife’s edge. The sky is rose-colored and slightly mottled, suggesting the sun is setting to the west, behind the photographer. In a photograph from December 2025, a windowless corner of the East Building of the National Gallery of Art rises up from the bottom of the frame, acutely angled and sharp like a knife’s edge. The sky is clear and brightly blue; one side of the stone wall is sunlit, while the other is in shadow.
December 7, 2025 at 3:30 PM
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Cross-posting from LinkedIn 🇺🇸 → 🇸🇪
Screenshot of post by Zachary Whittenburg on LinkedIn: In anticipation of my planned — and now imminent — relocation to Sweden, I’ve resigned from my role as program officer at the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. It was a goal of mine coming out of the pandemic, after working for ten years in nonprofit arts administration, to become more involved in philanthropy and to better understand the funding landscape. The past four years have been a kind of capstone to my 23 years of participation in Chicago’s cultural community, and I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to have worked with so many arts leaders and organizations. My attention now turns to Stockholm and how my career might continue there — your ideas and leads will be more than welcome. Onward!
November 22, 2025 at 5:00 PM
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There’s a lot in this oral history feature but this really stands out: “The idea of the investigation was that Perkins Coie supposedly engaged in illegal discrimination against white men.”

Three percent of 467 is 14. They asserted a firm that made 14 Black people partner disadvantaged white men.
“Dena Robinson: One of my colleagues was pulled into working on the investigations. Every single time that this colleague pointed out factual or legal or ethical issues, the people running them just shrugged. “For example, the administration was saying they wanted to go after Perkins Coie because of Trump’s commitment to ending discriminatory D.E.I. policies. The idea of the investigation was that Perkins Coie supposedly engaged in illegal discrimination against white men. But Perkins Coie is an extremely white firm — only 3 percent of the partners are Black. When my colleague pointed that out, the leadership didn’t care. They’d already reached their conclusion. They continued instructing my colleague to just find the evidence for it.”
November 19, 2025 at 1:39 AM
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Delighted to announce that, as of this evening, I have been photographed on Scott Burton’s Two-Part Chaise (1986–89) in two buildings by Tadao Ando (Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Wrightwood 659) in two U.S. states (Missouri and Illinois)
November 6, 2025 at 3:57 AM
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Phylicia Rashad as Clair Huxtable on “The Cosby Show” Agnes Moorehead as Endora on “Bewitched” Bonnie Franklin as Ann Romano on “One Day at a Time” Jessica Walter as Fran Sinclair on “Dinosaurs”
November 6, 2025 at 3:38 AM
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TMW three of my friends recreated classic Diane Keaton looks for Halloween, and we ran into a fourth Diane Keaton
A bearded gentleman dressed for Halloween as Diane Keaton, wearing a black bowler hat and multiple necklaces with cross-shaped pendants, dances with one arm raised A mustachioed gentleman dressed for Halloween as Diane Keaton, wearing a blonde bob wig and black fedora along with frameless sunglasses, looks over his right shoulder A bearded gentleman dressed for Halloween as Diane Keaton, wearing a black bowler hat and Annie Hall–style vest and necktie, stands in front of a neon sign that says “Party” Four men dressed as Diane Keaton for Halloween pose together for a group photograph
November 1, 2025 at 11:52 PM
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The vacant, former Hanig’s Footwear at the base of the Hancock Center is like a Donald Judd
Twelve wall-mounted boxes in two parallel rows of six used to display shoes for sale in a now-empty storefront in Chicago. The back of each illuminated box is a vibrant color — lime green, bright red, seafoam green, etc.
October 31, 2025 at 3:51 AM
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Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, interesting views from hotel fitness centers
A parking garage, buildings, and trees are reflected by a glass curtain wall in downtown Minneapolis, whose mirrored panes distort the image
October 22, 2025 at 2:31 PM
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Heist in progress at 50 South Sixth in downtown Minneapolis (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 2001)
Three workers clean exterior windows high up at 50 South Sixth in downtown Minneapolis, a skyscraper designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and completed in 2001. In the foreground are the dark, square windows of nearby 33 South Sixth, designed by the same firm and built two decades earlier.
October 22, 2025 at 2:12 PM
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We didn’t see Eric Adams but my husband and I just spent the past week in Tirana, Albania and it really feels halfway through a profound transformation
Tall mountains are visible behind the Tirana, Albania skyline at dusk Tall mountains are visible behind a Tirana, Albania construction site at sunset
October 12, 2025 at 3:06 AM
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So great to, a week later, tune into live coverage of the 215th Aniversario del Grito de Independencia bit.ly/46EGb9V
September 16, 2025 at 3:52 AM
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Found and bought in a friend’s used bookstore in Mexico City a copy of dancer and choreographer Valery Panov’s autobiography. Found out afterward that Panov died just a few months earlier, June 3 of this year
September 14, 2025 at 3:13 AM
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Back in Chicago after a week working remotely from Mexico City, where the Independence Day decorations were going up everywhere and where I love being so much
A lovely, blue-and-orange, Modernist pavilion in Parque México, Mexico City Mexican Independence Day decorations and preparations in the Plaza de la Constitución, Mexico City at dusk The view north at dusk from the Zócalo in central Mexico City A cluster of skyscrapers punctuates the horizon in a view from the roof of Museo Anahuacalli in southern Mexico City
September 8, 2025 at 12:12 AM
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South Wabash Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, June 18, 2025
June 20, 2025 at 4:16 AM
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WTF bit.ly/3FzJ2WX
May 28, 2025 at 10:00 PM
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Surely I’m not the first to wonder why lesbian and gay aren’t on this otherwise remarkably exhaustive list, my crackpot theory being that they’ll aim to narrow Obergefell to same-sex relationships between cisgender people only, wrapped exclusively in a demonstrably nonexistent binary bit.ly/4hdcy1z
March 8, 2025 at 2:45 AM