WBEZ12%

Is Frank Gehry's Icehenge desk headed to a museum? 64%

By Lee Bey0%

7/17/2026, 6:33:37 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 18 faulty reasoning types, including Unattributed Quote, Confirmation Bias, and Ambiguity (Equivocation), with Appeal to Authority as the most egregious example at 36% saturation with 162 hits. Analysis detected 764 faulty-reasoning hits from 450 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 59.4% and a BS Rank of 64% (6,450 of 17,853 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 63.90% of the article peer group.

The 7-ton glass desk designed by the late architect Frank Gehry might end up in a museum  at least in the short term  the auction house that oversaw the item’s sale said Friday. 
Called Icehenge, the 16-piece emerald glass desk created for the lobby of the Inland Steel Building sold Wednesday for $243,200. 
“The buyer is dedicated to maintaining public access to Icehenge and is considering a temporary loan to a suitable museum or institution,” a representative of the Chicago office of Freeman’s said. 
“Currently, no specific plans have been finalized.” 
So who’s the successful bidder? 
Freeman’s wouldn’t say. 
But Icehenge’s new owners are not Gehry friends Thomas and Margot Pritzker, or their foundation, a Pritzker spokesperson told me. 
It was worth asking: Gehry was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1989. 
Internationally-known architect Adrian Smith also didn’t wind up with the desk. 
His firm, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, is located in the Inland Steel Building, 30 W. 
Monroe St. 
The piece  a staffed and functioning security desk  was installed in the building in 2012. 
Gehry died in 2025 at age 96. 
Icehenge is as much sculpture as it is furniture, with the same billowing, sail-like quality found in many of Gehry’s designs. 
But the work is also visually untamed, jagged and unpredictable. 
“It does look like an explosion in a glass factory, kind of,” the Los Angeles architect told Chicago architecture critic Blair Kamin in 2013. 
“If you actually had an explosion at a glass factory, apart from everyone getting killed, it would be pretty exciting visually.” 
The piece is composed of two main desktops, plus base supports and decorative forms  all made of glass. 
There are also a pair of mirrored cabinets. 
That’s a lot of heavy glass and accoutrements for the winning bidder to move. 
And the desk’s destination better be pretty sturdy: Icehenge is heavier than the combined weight of four nicely optioned 2026 Honda Accord sedans. 
And in order to get the piece out of the building, the buyer will have to cover the cost of removing, then reinstalling some of the glass-paneled lobby windows of the skyscraper, a protected city landmark and globally recognized high point in modern architecture. 
The buyer will also need a “reputable, experienced transporter,” and the piece will have to be removed “based on the timing of delivery of a replacement desk, which is expected to be delivered in mid-September,” according to the auction details. 
The Inland Steel Building is owned by New York Life Insurance Co., which acquired the deed from Inland Steel’s previous owners, Capital Properties, in 2025, in lieu of foreclosure. 
Confirmation Bias
13.3%
Anchoring Bias
5.1%
Availability Heuristic
3.1%
Representativeness Heuristic
2.9%
Hindsight Bias
0%
Overconfidence Bias
0%
Framing Effect
10.9%
Loss Aversion
0%
Status Quo Bias
0%
Sunk Cost Effect
0%
Optimism Bias
7.8%
Pessimism Bias
0%
Negativity Bias
9.3%
Self-Serving Bias
0%
Fundamental Attribution Error
0%
Actor-Observer Bias
0%
In-Group Bias
0%
Out-Group Homogeneity Bias
0%
Halo Effect
9.1%
Horn Effect
0%
Dunning-Kruger Effect
0%
Recency Bias
1.6%
Primacy Effect
0%
Blind-Spot Bias
0%
Ad Hominem
0%
Straw Man
0%
Appeal to Authority
36%
False Dilemma
2.4%
Slippery Slope
0%
Circular Reasoning
0%
Hasty Generalization
3.1%
Red Herring
1.1%
Bandwagon
0%
Appeal to Emotion
10%
Begging the Question
0%
Post Hoc (False Cause)
0%
Tu Quoque
0%
Burden of Proof
0%
Appeal to Nature
0%
Composition/Division
4.7%
Anecdotal
0%
No True Scotsman
0%
Ambiguity (Equivocation)
11.3%
Gambler’s Fallacy
0%
Middle Ground
0%
Personal Incredulity
0%
Special Pleading
0%
Genetic Fallacy
0%
Unattributed Quote
28%
Quote-first Misdirection
10%
Biased Writer Voice
0%
Indoctrination
0%
Politically Left Leaning Bias
0%
Politically Right Leaning Bias
0%
Attempt to Sell a Product or Service
0%

450 words analyzed.

Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.