Dear friends,
In 2025, MAS Context celebrated its sixteenth year as an independent nonprofit organization that commissions, facilitates, and supports creative discourse about the built environment.
As we reflect upon this year, we 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.
By the numbers, in 2025 we collaborated with 139 architects, designers, artists, researchers, and writers on 30 public events and 30 original articles; we partnered with 13 Chicago-based organizations, as well as Concéntrico Festival, Scan Design Foundation, Yale School of Architecture, Villa Albertine, and Barbara Bestor gallery; and we featured projects and artists based in 12 different countries.
Some highlights include:
- Opening an expanded MAS Context Reading Room in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood, where we organized several public programs and three exhibitions, including Thus We Advance, Harvesting Our Caravans, 18 of a Kind, and Common Chicago, presented within the context of SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change, the sixth edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial. We also welcomed other organizations, including hosting a program by the Chicago Architectural Club, reviews by UIC School of Architecture, and a social gathering with Perkins&Will.
- Presenting three more exhibitions across Chicago, including Models Off-Site showcasing the work of Kwong Von Glinow, Boliglaboratorium: A Danish Housing Lab featuring six groundbreaking Danish architectural projects, and Concéntrico: Urban Innovation Laboratory reflecting on the first decade of the international Concéntrico festival in Logroño, Spain.
- Organizing a new edition of our series “Now/Arriving” and the ninth annual edition of “Tracing/Traces” at The Art Institute of Chicago, an event featuring five Chicago-based architects that explore the archives of the museum.
- Commissioning and supporting the installation of BairBalliet in Logroño, Spain, as part of Concéntrico Festival, following our support of Germane Barnes, Design With Company, and Outpost Office in previous editions. Stay tuned for the announcement of the team working on the 2026 installation!
- Publishing three books, including Challenging Patterns of Supremacy with Dark Matter U (DMU), Thirtysix Views of Inverted Portal of the work of Montana-based photographer James Florio, and the CAB5: This is a Rehearsal catalogue with the Chicago Architecture Biennial and edited by the Floating Museum.
- Publishing an array of articles on our Observations platform, including excerpts from books such as What a Building Does: The Hoosier Modernisms of Evans Woollen and Material Acts: Experimentation in Architecture and Design, eight interviews with architects, designer, and artists, as well as a collective reflection on Northerly Island as it turns 100.
- Releasing ten essays by architectural historian Elizabeth Blasius covering such topics as the history of Gerri’s Palm Tavern, the lessons from the Damen Silos demolition, the recently opened National Public Housing Museum, and a feature on Florence Scala, the Joan of Arc of Chicago’s Near West Side.
- Organizing 22 public programs in Chicago, Minnesota, and Los Angeles, from in-person film screenings of Fernand Pouillon: France’s Most Wanted Architect and Beyond Closure, to book launches including Stanley Tigerman: Drawing on the Ineffable, Thirtysix Views of Inverted Portal, and Not a Woman Architect: The Life and Work of Brigitte Peterhans.
- Publishing the oral history of Sidney K. Robinson and recording two more oral histories that will be published next year and donated them to The Art Institute of Chicago. They will join those already produced by MAS Context of Kristine Fallon, Dan Wheeler, Robert L. Wesley, and Margaret McCurry.
- Working hard behind the scenes to sustainably grow our organization, thanks to the generous support of The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation providing general operating support, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts supporting two of our upcoming publications, and all the individual donors.
Looking ahead, MAS Context is already working on presenting public installations in Chicago and abroad, dynamic programming throughout the year, a new series of books in collaboration with James Florio, and making the MAS Context Reading Room a hub for sharing important work and bringing the design community together. MAS Context is committed to serving as a vital platform for creative thinking about the future of cities, whether by featuring stories that aren’t typically told or connecting people across disciplines. Moreover, we are dedicated to sharing our entire archive online without advertisements or paywalls.
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,
The MAS Context team