MAS Context | Tracing / Traces: Architecture and the Archive 2026

About this event

On Saturday, November 21, 2026, MAS Context will organize the tenth edition of our annual Tracing / Traces event offering a behind-the-scenes look at selected items from the Art Institute of Chicago’s Ryerson & Burnham Art and Architecture Archives. The program will take place at the Art Institute of Chicago’s Ryerson & Burnham Libraries (111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60603).

Five architects and designers will select items from the collection and discuss them in relationship to their practice, the discipline, and/or society. Nathaniel Parks, Tigerman McCurry Director of the Art Institute of Chicago Archives, will provide a brief introduction to the archives.

Participants will include:

Jenna Dezinski – Cofounder, Letter J Peter Landon – Founder and Principal, LBBA Clare Lyster – Founder, Clare Lyster Urbanism And Architecture Spencer McNeill – Architect and educator Nilay Mistry – Landscape architect and educator

The Ryerson & Burnham Art and Architecture Archives’ collections are notably strong in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century American architecture, with particular depth in midwestern architecture. Architects such as Edward Bennett, Daniel Burnham, Bruce Goff, Bertrand Goldberg, Ludwig Hilberseimer, Mies van der Rohe, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright are represented in a broad range of papers. Major architectural events, such as the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, The Century of Progress International Exposition of 1933–1934 in Chicago, and the World’s Fair of 1939 in New York, are also represented in an individual archive.

For more information about this talk, please visit: https://mascontext.com/events/tracing-traces-architecture-and-the-archive-2026

MAS Context is supported in part by private donations. For information about how to support MAS Context, please visit: https://mascontext.com/support

NOTE

Please note that an RSVP does not guarantee entry. Admission is on a first come, first served basis. If we reach capacity, we will no longer be able to admit additional attendees.

From MAS Context