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Klaus in partnership with MAS Context
Welcome to Tribuneville: An Imaginary Vision of an Old Chicago That Could Have Been
June 17 – December 30, 2024
Monday–Friday: 11am–2pm / Saturday: 1–10pm
Public Events
PUBLIC RECEPTION
October 8, 2024 6–8pm
Lobby of 150 North Riverside
150 North Riverside Plaza Chicago, IL 60606
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Reception for “Welcome to Tribuneville: An Imaginary Vision of an Old Chicago That Could Have Been” with architectural cartoonist Klaus. Attendees will have an opportunity to watch the installation at 150 Media Stream and listen to a panel discussion between architectural cartoonist Klaus and Iker Gil, founder of MAS Context.
LECTURE
October 10, 2024 at 6pm
Society of Architectural Historians
1365 North Astor Street, Chicago, IL 60610
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During this event, Luis Miguel Lus Arana will talk about the background and development of the installation and its historical framework, his scholarly research on architecture and the history of visionary urban design in popular media, and the relationship of both with his two-decade long cartooning work under the pseudonym “Klaus.”
ABOUT THE WORK
“Welcome to Tribuneville: An Imaginary Vision of an Old Chicago That Could Have Been” was first conceived during a 2022 conversation between Klaus and Iker Gil, founder and editor-in-chief of MAS Context, about the upcoming 100-year anniversary of the Chicago Tribune Tower Competition. Feeling it a shame that such a display of architectural imagination remains mostly unknown, Klaus took it upon himself to recover his favorite among these unbuilt entries and imagine a Chicago that could have been.
A first version of “Welcome to Tribuneville,” both in flat-drawing form and as a short video, premiered at “Chicago Tribune Tower Competition at 100,” an event organized by MAS Context in November 2022. In Fall 2023, a version of the work was published as a cartoon in Spanish architectural magazine Arquine #105: “Mediations.” Arquine is actually Mexico’s leading architecture magazine. “Welcome to Tribuneville” has now been drastically expanded for its upcoming large-scale installation at 150 Media Stream.
“Since their inaugural work in 2017, 150 Media Stream has presented remarkable artwork by local, national, and international artists, and their media wall will provide a perfect venue to bring this exciting work to downtown Chicago at such an epic scale,” said Gil. “Having worked with Klaus on a number of projects over the past decade, I can’t wait to share his imaginative vision for what Chicago could have been a century ago with the broader Chicago public.”
Klaus’s “Welcome to Tribuneville” wins first place, practitioner, in RIBAJ’s annual drawing competition. Congratulations Klaus!
Excerpt of the RIBAJ announcement highlighting the comments from the jury:
“Chia-Yi Chou was fascinated by ‘the way he’s brought all of them together, and more, to tell the story of a moment of architectural history—all rendered as if it’s real but which is in fact a work of complete fiction.’
Jan-Carlos Kucharek called it a ‘Soanic pasticcio in drawn form,’ to which Sarah Wigglesworth added that the piece can be understood ‘in the historical context of JM Gandy’s painterly efforts to represent the pantheon of Soane’s built and unbuilt works.’
Knut Ramstad appreciated how ‘it’s not just about the level of detail of the drawing but the layering of the Chicago story that leaves you able to study the drawing for hours.’”
You can read more about about the award here.
ABOUT THE TRIBUNE TOWER INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION OF 1922
Back in June 1922, the Chicago Tribune launched an international architectural competition for the building that would house its new headquarters with the ambitious goal of constructing “the most beautiful office building in the world.”
“Welcome to Tribuneville,” 2024. © Klaus. Courtesy of 150 Media Stream and MAS Context.
With a $50,000, $20,000, and $10,000 prize for first, second, and third place respectively, plus a previous fee of $2,000 paid to ten firms that had been invited to submit their designs, the competition was an unquestionable success that earned it a place in the official history of architecture. As much an architectural competition as a publicity stunt for the newspaper, “The International Competition for a New Administration Building for the Chicago Tribune” was part of a massive campaign that generated worldwide press coverage, attracting 263 entries from twenty-three countries, which would then be published in a book and featured in a travelling exhibition. Beside the winning entry by John Mead Howells and Raymond M. Hood, and Eliel Saarinen’s proposal—a second place that many felt should have won—the competition attracted designs from some of the most prominent architects of the time, both within the US and from the international scene. Some of those architects submitting their tower designs included Walter Gropius, Adolf Loos, Bruno Taut, Max Taut, Jan Duiker, and Ludwig Hilberseimer.
Other than the built proposal, the proposals by Loos and Gropius and, perhaps, Saarinen’s design, most of these designs have been lost to the collective imagination. This parade of inventive proposals ranges from the beautifully elegant to the hilariously wacky, from the neo-Gothic to the Beaux Arts, from hyper-ornamental Art Nouveau to beautifully crafted Art Deco, spiky Expressionism, and naked functionalism.
“Welcome to Tribuneville” asks, what if all the entries to the Tribune Tower Competition had been built?
“Welcome to Tribuneville,” 2024. © Klaus. Courtesy of 150 Media Stream and MAS Context.
KLAUS
Klaus is an architectural cartoonist active since the early 2000s. Focused on the critique of the architectural star system, the revision of the radical visions of the ’60s and ’70s, and the reinterpretation of the icons of architectural history, both within the discipline and the media, his cartoons have been published in magazines such as Architectural Design, Architectural Review, Arq, Arq’a, eVolo, Clog, Conditions, Domus, Harvard Design Magazine, J–A Jornal Arquitectos, MAS Context, STUDIO, The New City Reader, Volume, as well as several books. He has been a regular contributor to German magazine Uncube (“Numerus Klausus,” 2013–2016), A10: New European Architecture (“Interchange,” 2014–2016), and Arquine, where he writes and illustrates his section “ArquiNoir” since 2013. His work has been exhibited in cities such as Naples, Venice, Santiago (Chile), Mexico D.F., and Chicago, among others. In his other life he is also Luis Miguel (Koldo) Lus Arana, Associate Professor in the Theory and History of Architecture at the University of Zaragoza, where he teaches and writes about the intersections of architecture, media, and popular culture.
https://klaustoon.wordpress.com/
Klaus Toons (@klaustoon) / X
MAS CONTEXT
MAS Context shares ideas and facilitates discourse about urban design and the built environment. Deeply rooted in Chicago but with a global reach, MAS Context nurtures an inclusive community of creative thinkers across disciplines who are interested in the future of cities.
Over the past fifteen years, MAS Context has collaborated with 775 architects, designers, artists, and writers across a variety of mediums and platforms in addition to its topic-based journal, including books, online publishing, public events, oral histories, exhibitions, and site-specific installations. These platforms allow for varying speeds, formats, engagements, audiences, and outcomes. All content is archived online and available for free.
Credits: ‘Welcome to Tribuneville: An Imaginary Vision of an Old Chicago That Could Have Been’
Based on the illustration and short video ‘Welcome to Tribuneville: 100th Anniversary of the Chicago Tribune Tower Competition’ by Koldo Lus Arana (Klaus) and Andrés Jiménez-Lobera. Presented at the event ‘Chicago Tribune Tower Competition at 100’; MAS Context Fall Talks, November 21, 2022.
Concept, drawing, storyboarding and direction: Luis Miguel [Koldo] Lus-Arana aka: ‘Klaus’ (@klaustoon).
Animation, sound, and editing: David Rubioma Motion Graphics Design.
Featuring a selection of 60 entries submitted to the Chicago Tribune Tower Competition (1922) and published in The International Competition for a New Administration Building for the Chicago Tribune MCMXXII.
Marion Harris: After you’ve gone, composed by Turner Layton with lyrics by Henry Creamer. Victor Records, 1918.
Mildred Hunt: A shady Tree, composed by Walterd Donaldson, conducted by Paul Whiteman. Victor Records, 1927.
Featured architectural works by: Eliel Saarinen · Dwight G. Wallace · Bertell Grenman | Edward Shepard Hewitt | Hellmuth & Hellmuth | Mead Walter | Chas H. Bebb · Carl F. Hould | Glenn Brown & Bedford Brown | Albert Randolph Ross · John Sloan | John Wynkoop | Frank Fort | Franklin James Hunt | Bliss & Faville | Alfred Morton Githens | J.L. Baker | William Berg | I. N. Phelps Stokes | Samson, Dodd & Pierpont | Dennison & Hirons | William Drummond | Frank Herding · W. W. Boyd, Jr. | Douglas D. Ellington | Alfred Dellheimer · Steward Wagner | Paul Gerhardt | Mathew L. Freeman | Erich J. Patelski | Frank O. King | Gaar C. Williams | Carey C. Orr | Walter Burley Griffin | Einar Sjostrom · Jarl Eklund | Henri Georges Chassagniole | Honoré Monestel | Adolf Loos | Walter Gropius · Adolf Meyer | Heribert Freiherr Von Luttwitz | H. W. Kruger · Hermann Zess | Gerhard Schroeder | Max Taut | Bruno Taut · Walter Gunther · Kurz Schutz | Heinrich Mossdorf · Hans Hahn · Bruno Busch | Ludwig Koloch | Meischke & Schmidt | D. F. Slothouwer | D. A. Van Zanten | Bernard Bijvoet · Jan Duiker | H. F. Mertens | A. van Baalen | F. H. Douw van der Krap | Giuseppe Boni | Saverio Dioguardi | Pino Vittorio | Antonio Galiffa | Lippincott & Billson | James Salmon | Pedro Guimón Eguiguren | Rafael González Villar | Anonymous architects.
Streaming Next… Laura Harrison & Lilli Carré
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