MAS Context has reached its 5 years old and celebrates its 20th issue, with "Narrative". Co-edited together with Koldo Lus Arana and Klaus. An exceptional volume, a great work of revision and update of the main authors and influences illustration, comics or bande dessinée in the current architecture. Interesting interviews and narratives, in a digital world that welcomes this form of graphic representation , with as much enthusiasm as excess. An essential issue. Below, presentation of the number and links. Congratulations to all, great! well done!

Even in a moment of digital explosion such as the one we are living, comics and graphic narrative are the new ‘cool’ in architectural schools (sorry), making it into architectural design courses, and showing up as a new fashion in architectural representation/communication.

by Klaus in Klaustoon's Blog

Architecture and narrative, as Victor Hugo nostalgically pointed out in The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1831, have walked hand in hand through history, crossing paths without really risking the extinction that the archdeacon of Notre-Dame gloomily predicted. Today, in a moment where the conjunction of the crisis and the entrance into a new stage in the communication era impulse the discipline into new, multiple directions, the narrative aspects of architecture come to the front. This issue tackles the intersections between architectural practices and different forms of visual narrative. Within this overall theme, our NARRATIVE issue moves on both sides of the line that separates these two disciplines, presenting three different perspectives, organized in three consecutive parts. The first section of the issue deals with the presence of graphic narrative in disciplinary architecture, both past and present while the second one discusses the crossing of borders portrayed by comics artists who also make forays into the built world. Finally, the third one moves towards both sides of the spectrum, briefly covering the tangents with (implied) written narratives and emerging animation practices in architecture.

Contributions by Andrea Alberghini, Ethel Baraona Pohl, Sir Peter Cook, Manuele Fior, Factory Fifteen, Iker Gil, Jones, Partners: Architecture, Tom Kaczynski, Jimenez Lai, Klaus, Léopold Lambert, Luis Miguel (Koldo) Lus Arana, Marc-Antoine Mathieu, Clara Olóriz Sanjuán, Cesar Reyes Nájera, François Schuiten, Joost Swarte, Mélanie van der Hoorn, and Chris Ware whose work is featured in our cover.

This issue is guest edited by architectural scholar Koldo Lus Arana and architect-cartoonist Klaus.

Introduction
Architectural Narratives. Issue statement by Iker Gil,editor in chief of MAS Context.

Building Stories
Drawings by Chris Ware. Text by Klaus.

Comics and Architecture, Comics in Architecture
Essay by Koldo Lus Arana.

Buildings and Their Representations Collapsing Upon One Another. Architecture in comic strip form
Essay by Mélanie van der Hoorn.

Amazing Archigram!
Clara Olóriz and Koldo Lus Arana interview architect Sir Peter Cook.

Lost in the Line
Graphic Novel by Léopold Lambert.

Out of Water
Graphic Novel by Jimenez Lai.

Kartun: The View!
Graphic Novel by Jones, Partners: Architecture, Mark Simmons, and The Southern California Institute of Architecture.

Cartooning Architecture and Other Issues
Iker Gil interviews graphic artist Klaus.

Starchitecture Redux
Cartoons by Klaus.

Sensing the Comic’s DNA: Excerpts of a conversation with François Schuiten
Mélanie van der Hoorn in conversation with François Schuiten.

Swarte’s Mystery Theater
Koldo Lus Arana in conversation with Joost Swarte.

Labyrinths and Metaphysical Constructions: An Interview with Marc-Antonie Mathieu
Léopold Lambert interviews graphic novelist Marc-Antoine Mathieu.

Images Come First
Andrea Alberghini interviews Manuele Fior.

Beta Testing Architecture: Yearning for Space with Tom Kaczynski
Koldo Lus Arana interviews Tom Kaczynski.

Archiporn or Storylines? Creative Architectural commercials as challenges to the communication and marketing of architecture
Essay by Mélanie van der Hoorn.

Beyond Built Architecture
Ethel Baraona Pohl and César Reyes from dpr-barcelona interview Jonathan Gales, founding member of Factory Fifteen.

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More information

Koldo Lus Arana, PhD is an architect, urban planner and scholar (University of Navarra/ IUAV/ Harvard GSD) whose two main lines of research are the interactions between architecture and mass media, and the History of Utopian Planning. He is the Author of “Futuropolis,” a history of the evolution of the image of the future city, and his research work has been published in magazines such as Menhir, Aequus, (Dis)Courses, (In)Forma, Lars: Arquitectura y Ciudad, URBES, Clog, Flow Platform, or RA, as well as books such as Seeking the City: Visionaries on the Margins (2008), Ecological Urbanism (2010), or Once Upon A Place (2013). He is currently professor of Theory and History of Post-War and Contemporary Architecture in the University of Zaragoza (Spain).

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Klaus is a frustrated cartoonist who lives in an old castle in Europe, intermittently uploading his cartoons in Klaustoon’s Blog since 2009. Much to his surprise, his work is often published in architectural publications, such as The New City Reader, Aequus, eVolo, (In)forma, Clog, (Dis)Courses, Harvard Design Magazine, The Harvard Satyrical Press, MAS Context, Conditions, Studio, Project International, or Volume. Also, it has been exhibited in places such as Barcelona, Cambridge, Chicago, London, Naples, New York, Portimao, or, most importantly, OMA’s canteen. Currently, he publishes a monthly cartoon in the “Klaus’s Cube” section of uncube magazine and still owes Sanford Kwinter a cartoon. He is not Rem Koolhaas.

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Iker Gil is the founder of MAS Studio, the Editor in Chief of the nonprofit MAS Context, and the Executive Director of the SOM Foundation. He has edited or coedited several books including Radical Logic: On the Work of Ensamble Studio and Shanghai Transforming.

He has curated multiple exhibitions including Nocturnal Landscapes, Poured Architecture: Sergio Prego on Miguel Fisac, and BOLD: Alternative Scenarios for Chicago, part of the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial. He was cocurator of Exhibit Columbus 2020–2021 and Associate Curator of the US Pavilion for the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. He has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), and the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT).

Iker has received several grants and awards for his work, including the 2010 Emerging Visions Award from the Chicago Architectural Club, The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation grants, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts grants, Ruy de Clavijo grant by Casa Asia, and PICE grant by AC/E (Acción Cultural Española).

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Published on: December 23, 2013
Cite: "NARRATIVE. New issue for MAS Context magazine, and 5 YEARS!!" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/narrative-new-issue-mas-context-magazine-and-5-years> ISSN 1139-6415
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