Dear friends,
In 2024, MAS Context celebrated its fifteenth year as an independent nonprofit organization that commissions, facilitates, and supports creative discourse about the built environment.
As we reflect upon this milestone year, we first want to express our gratitude for you as an essential member of the MAS Context community. Thank you for engaging with our work, collaborating with us, and supporting us; we couldn’t do it without you!
By the numbers, in 2024 we collaborated with 69 architects, designers, artists, researchers, and writers on 24 public events and 27 original articles; we partnered with 12 Chicago-based organizations, as well as the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Canada and Concéntrico Festival in Spain; and we featured projects and artists from seven different countries.
Some highlights include:
- Commissioning and co-presenting the award-winning installation “Welcome to Tribuneville: An Imaginary Vision of an Old Chicago That Could Have Been” by architectural cartoonist Klaus. Attracting our largest audience to date, this hand-drawn animation features sixty unbuilt proposals from the 1922 Chicago Tribune Tower architectural competition. The installation is enjoyed by all ages and on view through the end of the year; stop by 150 Media Stream to see it, if you haven’t already!
- Organizing “A Lot With Little Chicago,” an event featuring five Chicago-based architects and community leaders engaged with social impact and adaptive reuse. The program accompanied the US premiere of the multichannel film installation by curator Noemi Blager and discussed the creative rehabilitation of vacant school buildings around the city.
- Commissioning and supporting the installation of Outpost Office in Logroño, Spain, as part of Concéntrico Festival, following our support of Germane Barnes and Design With Company in previous editions.
- Publishing an array of articles on our Observations platform, including excerpts from books such as Félix Candela from Mexico City to Chicago: Rise and Fall of Experimentation in Concrete and The Japanese House Since 1945, as well as interviews with Carol Ross Barney, Denise Scott Brown, and Jack Bowman.
- Releasing ten essays by architectural historian Elizabeth Blasius covering such topics as the history of preservation in Chicago, the saga of the Century and Consumers Buildings, the resurrection of the Michigan Central Station in Detroit, and lost buildings in St. Louis.
- Organizing digital and in-person film screenings, including a three-part documentary series produced by the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), Designing Life: The Modernist Architecture of Albert C. Ledner, Robin Hood Gardens, John Portman: A Life of Building, and Beyond Closure.
- Publishing oral histories of groundbreaking architects Robert L. Wesley, Dan Wheeler, and Kristine Fallon and donating them to The Art Institute of Chicago.
- Working hard behind the scenes to sustainably grow our organization, thanks to the generous support of The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.
Looking ahead, MAS Context is as committed as ever to serving as a vital platform for creative thinking about the future of cities, whether it be featuring stories that don’t typically get told or connecting people across disciplines. Moreover, we are dedicated to sharing our entire archive online without advertisements or paywalls, and we strive to offer our public events free of charge.
And we could use your help. As you plan for your year-end giving, please consider supporting MAS Context with a tax-deductible, charitable donation.
Thank you for helping MAS Context be a place where the urban design community can come together and learn from each other, in Chicago and beyond.
With gratitude,
Iker Gil
Founder and Editor in Chief
MAS Context