MAS Context and 150 Media Stream are thrilled to co-present “Welcome to Tribuneville: An Imaginary Vision of an Old Chicago That Could Have Been” by architectural cartoonist Klaus.
The hand-drawn animation, installed on 150 Media Stream’s giant media wall—a 150 ft x 22 ft series of LED screens—features sixty of the most inventive building designs entered in the famed 1922 Chicago Tribune Tower architectural competition, as well as flying machines, elevated walkways, monorail tramways, and other fantastical details dreamed up by the artist.
The work will be on view to the public for free in the lobby of 150 North Riverside Plaza in Chicago from June 17—December 30, 2024. A series of public events related to the installation are currently being planned for Fall 2024, with details forthcoming.
“Welcome to Tribuneville” by Klaus, 2024. Photograph by Michael Salisbury. Courtesy of 150 Media Stream and MAS Context.
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 100th 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 favourite among these unbuilt entries and imagine a Chicago that could have been.
The first version of “Welcome to Tribuneville,” both in flat-drawing form and as a short video, premiered at the “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 the Spanish architectural magazine Arquine #105: “Mediations.” “Welcome to Tribuneville” has been drastically expanded for its upcoming large-scale installation at 150 Media Stream.
“Welcome to Tribuneville” by Klaus, 2024. Courtesy of 150 Media Stream and MAS Context.
“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 an ideal venue to bring this exciting work to downtown Chicago at such an epic scale,” said Gil. “Having worked with Klaus on several 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.”
“The iconic design and location of the 150 North Riverside Plaza is a perfect backdrop for this installation that celebrates the exuberance of Chicago architecture,” said Yuge Zhou, video artist and curator of 150 Media Stream. “I’ve been following MAS Context’s incredibly deep and provocative programs over the years and I’m excited to partner with them to present Klaus’s beautiful animation to our community. Klaus’s work is a unique and meticulous reconstruction of history with tantalizing glimpses of a wonderous Chicago. The scale and structure of the 150 Media Stream feels like an ideal platform to envelope the viewers with his worldbuilding.”
“The iconic design and location of the 150 North Riverside Plaza is a perfect backdrop for this installation that celebrates the exuberance of Chicago architecture,” said Yuge Zhou, video artist and curator of 150 Media Stream. “I’ve been following MAS Context’s incredibly deep and provocative programs over the years and I’m excited to partner with them to present Klaus’s beautiful animation to our community. Klaus’s work is a unique and meticulous reconstruction of history with tantalizing glimpses of a wonderous Chicago. The scale and structure of the 150 Media Stream feels like an ideal platform to envelope the viewers with his worldbuilding.”
About the Tribune Tower International Competition of 1922
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.”
With $50,000, $20,000, and $10,000 prizes for first, second, and third place respectively, plus a $2,000 honorarium paid to ten firms that had been invited to submit their designs, the competition was an unquestionable success that earned it a storied place in the 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 were subsequently published in a book and featured in a travelling exhibition.
“Welcome to Tribuneville” by Klaus, 2024. Courtesy of 150 Media Stream and MAS Context.
In addition to the winning entry by John Mead Howells 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, such as Walter Gropius, Adolf Loos, Bruno Taut, Max Taut, Jan Duiker, and Ludwig Hilberseimer. While most of the designs have been lost to the collective imagination, the parade of inventive proposals ranges from the beautifully elegant to the hilariously wacky, from the neo-Gothic to the Beaux Arts, from the hyper-ornamental Art Nouveau to the beautifully crafted Art Deco, from spiky Expressionism to naked functionalism, and beyond.
With “Welcome to Tribuneville,” Klaus creates an alternative vision of Chicago by asking, “What if all the entries to the 1922 Tribune Tower Competition had been built?”
