Kate Wagner (b. 1993) is an award winning critic and journalist based in Chicago. She is currently the architecture critic at The Nation. First known for her satirical blog McMansion Hell, Wagner has served as a columnist in the fields of architecture and culture at a number of publications including The Baffler, Curbed, and The New Republic. She has also taught as a lecturer in Art History at the University of Chicago and has given talks around the world, including a viral TED Talk on McMansions and the 2020 Brendan Gill Honorary Lecture at the Yale School of Architecture. In 2024, Wagner won an American Book Award for her creative non-fiction essay on Formula 1. Set Pieces, a monograph on the theater work of Diamond Schmitt Architects to which she contributed, won the 2025 Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Architectural Journalism and Media Award. When not writing about the built environment, she spends her time at the opera and writing fiction.
The companion to Sieglinde.net is Wehwalt.net, a website about Wagner's Ring cycle.