View News

MAS Context and the 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial

May 11, 2021

On Wednesday, April 28, the Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB) revealed the initial list of twenty-nine contributors participating in the exhibition that will open on September 17, 2021. MAS Context is thrilled to collaborate with Studio Barnes and Shawhin Roudbari in this edition.

Mas news 2021 mas context and the 2021 chicago architecture biennial 01

Pop Up Porch, Delray Beach, Florida, 2018. © Cepods LLC.

Germane Barnes and Shawhin Roudbari are the guest editors of the upcoming Vigilantism issue and lectured as part of the MAS Context Fall Talks 2020.

Germane Barnes’s research and design practice investigates the connection between architecture and identity. Mining architecture’s social and political agency, he examines how the built environment influences black domesticity. He is the former designer-in-residence for the Opa-locka Community Development Corporation, where he led a multi-site urban revitalization project. He is currently the director of the Community, Housing, and Identity Lab (CHIL) at the School of Architecture at the University of Miami. Learning from historical data and perspectives from within architecture as well as cultural and ethnic studies, CHIL posits that the built environment is manipulated by factors that extend far beyond conventional construction methods. Barnes’s design and research contributions have been published and exhibited in several international institutions including The Museum of Modern Art, PIN-UP magazine, the Graham Foundation, the New York Times, Architect Magazine, DesignMIAMI/ Art Basel, the Swiss Institute, Metropolis magazine, Curbed, and the National Museum of African American History where he was identified as a future designer on the rise. Germane Barnes is the winner of the 2021 Harvard GSD’s Wheelwright Prize and the 2021 Rome Prize in Architecture.

In addition to Studio Barnes with Shawhin Roudbari and MAS Context, the list of CAB contributors this year includes:

Ana Miljački (Critical Broadcasting Lab at MIT) (Boston)
Ania Jaworska (Chicago)
Atelier Bow-Wow (Tokyo)
Borderless Studio (Chicago)
Central Park Theater Restoration Committee (Chicago)
Christophe Hutin Architecture (Bordeaux)
Departamento del Distrito (Mexico City)
Drawing Architecture Studio (Beijing)
El Cielo (Mexico City)
Englewood Nature Trail (Chicago)
Enlace Arquitectura + Ciudad Laboratorio (Caracas)
fala (Porto)
Gensler (Stone Soup Group) (Los Angeles and Chicago)
Hood Design Studio (Oakland)
in care of Black women (Chicago)
Jill Desimini (Cambridge)
Matri-Archi(tecture) (Basel and Cape Town)
Open Architecture Chicago + Under the Grid (Chicago)
Outpost Office (Columbus)
PORT (Chicago and Philadelphia)
Project H.O.O.D (Chicago)
Riff Studio (New York City)
Soil Lab (Copenhagen and Dublin)
studioAPT (Ann Arbor)
Studio Ossidiana (Rotterdam and Venice)
The Bittertang Farm(Chicago and Bainbridge Island)
The Open Workshop (San Francisco and Toronto)
Urban American City (New York City)

The fourth edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial presents a new chapter of a decade-long research initiative led by 2021 Artistic Director, designer, and educator David Brown. The Available City, the 2021 edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, is a framework for a collaborative, community-led design approach that presents transformative possibilities for vacant urban spaces that are created with and for local residents.

2021 CAB Contributors Featured in MAS Context

10 Rorschach Images
Project by Ana Miljacki, Lee Moreau, and Sarah Hirschman

The Classy Order
Project by Ania Jaworska in collaboration with Zack Ostrowski

Forum Pavilion
Project by Ania Jaworska

When the Future was Here
Essay by Paola Aguirre and Michelle Ha Tucker with photographs by David Schalliol

In Your City by the Lake
Event by Borderless Studio, The Night Gallery, and MAS Context

Walking the Blue Line
Project by Paola Aguirre and Dennis Milam (Borderless Studio)

En-Medio: Casa Cueva
Text and interview by Departamento del Distrito

En-Medio: Súper Servicio Lomas
Text and interview by Departamento del Distrito

En-Medio
Lecture by architect Nathan Friedman

The Future that Never Happened
Short essay by fala

The Big Shift
Project by PORT

MAS Context : Analog 2011
Lecture by Andrew Moddrell & Christopher Marcinkoski (PORT)

MAS Context : Analog 2011
Stephen Killion interviews Christopher Marcinkoski and Andrew Moddrell

Makin’ It
Script by studioAPT(Julia McMorrough and John McMorrough)