In 1960, a young Japanese architecture professor named Fumihiko Maki completed his first commission — Steinberg Hall — while teaching at Washington University. For years that building, which showcased the University’s renowned art collection, represented Maki’s only built work in the United States.
Four decades later, Maki is among the world’s premier architects, a Pritzker Prize winner known for creating monumental spaces that fuse Eastern and Western sensibilities. His current projects include both the $330 million U.N. expansion in Manhattan and Tower 4 at the former World Trade Center site, scheduled to open in 2008 and 2011, respectively.
Now, Maki has returned to campus with the new Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, a dramatic, light-filled structure that will showcase the University’s internationally renowned art collection.
The Kemper Art Museum is both centerpiece and public face of the new Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. The five-building, $56.8 million complex also features Maki’s new studio building, Earl E. and Myrtle E. Walker Hall, as well as the recently renovated Bixby and Givens halls and Maki’s original commission, Steinberg Hall, which will be renovated during the 2006-07 year.
Both new buildings will be dedicated during a ceremony at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 25. Festivities also will include openings for the museum’s inaugural exhibitions as well as an open house of the entire Sam Fox School complex, from 4:30-8 p.m.
Shuttle service from The MUNY parking lot in Forest Park to the Sam Fox School will be available from 2-8:30 p.m. For more information, call 935-7382 or e-mail sylviastoll@wustl.edu.
“The Sam Fox School strengthens the arts at Washington University by drawing together our distinguished art, architecture and museum programs,” Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton said. “It fosters a collaborative, interdisciplinary environment in which students and faculty can strive for excellence and distinction.”
Carmon Colangelo, dean of the Sam Fox School and E. Desmond Lee Professor for Community Collaboration, adds that “Maki’s intimate relationship with Washington University makes him the ideal architect for the Sam Fox School. His designs are thoughtful, innovative and inspirational. In many ways, they exemplify our own aspirations and our vision for the future of design and the visual arts.”
Costs for the new construction and renovations have been met through the allocation of University funds and the receipt of outside commitments.
These include $10 million in gifts and bequests from St. Louis philanthropist Sam Fox, the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Harbour Group Ltd., and a $5 million gift from the family of the late Mildred Lane Kemper — $1 million from her husband, James M. Kemper Jr., chairman emeritus of Commerce Bancshares Inc.; $1 million from their son, David W. Kemper, chairman, president and CEO of Commerce Bancshares as well as chairman of WUSTL’s Board of Trustees, and his wife, Dotty Kemper; and $3 million from the William T. Kemper Foundation.
Other leadership commitments include a major gift from Earl E. and Myrtle E. Walker, CEO and vice president, respectively, of Carr Lane Manufacturing Co., as well as gifts from Eric P. and Evelyn Newman; the Gertrude and William A. Bernoudy Foundation; Kenneth and Nancy Kranzberg; Linda and Harvey Saligman; Fred Kemp; the children of Florence Steinberg and Richard K. Weil; May Department Stores Co.; the Caleb C. and Julia W. Dula Educational and Charitable Foundation; the Mary Ranken Jordan and Ettie A. Jordan Charitable Foundation; and Yvette Drury and John P. Dubinsky. Challenge grants were awarded by the J.E. and L.E. Mabee Foundation and The Kresge Foundation.
Maki, who serves as design architect, selected Harish Shah — a principal of Shah Kawasaki Architects, based in Oakland, Calif., and a 1973 WUSTL graduate — to serve as project architect. St. Louis-based McCarthy Building Cos. Inc. is construction manager.
Kemper Art Museum
The 65,000-square-foot, limestone-clad Kemper Art Museum more than triples the exhibition space previously available in Steinberg Hall.
On the main floor, the central, barrel-vaulted Saligman Family Atrium is flanked on either end by open, curtain-wall glass entrances. Soaring 25-foot ceilings, generous skylights and banks of clerestory windows define the Special Exhibitions Gallery and the College of Art Gallery, both located just off the atrium.
The floating limestone Freund Family Grand Staircase brings visitors up to the luminous Bernoudy Permanent Collection Gallery, also distinguished by large, recessed skylights.
“Maki’s interiors are informed by a modernist sensibility, which he realizes through a proportional application of grids and geometric forms,” said Sabine Eckmann, Ph.D., director and chief curator of the Kemper Art Museum. “The formal effect is softened by an integrated use of natural light that creates a spacious but intimate atmosphere and allows for relations between inside and outside.”
The elevated 5,000-square-foot Florence Steinberg Weil Sculpture Garden extends the museum’s exhibition space outdoors from the May Department Stores Foyer on the building’s north side. Alongside works from the collection — including Alexander Calder’s signature Five Rudders (1964) — the sculpture garden features a site-specific installation commissioned from Dan Peterman. The Chicago artist employs a post-minimalist aesthetic to create functional objects made of post-consumer materials.
Other recent acquisitions — purchased specifically for the new building — are installed in the atrium. These include a monumental canvas, MM6 (2001), by Michel Majerus and Olafur Eliasson’s spectacular Your Imploded View (2001), a highly polished, 600-pound aluminum sphere that swings like a pendulum from the atrium’s vaulted ceiling.
“Both works deliberately negotiate the impact of new technology on the production and perception of art,” Eckmann noted. “While Majerus combines the aesthetics of electronic art with the medium of painting in the 21st century, Eliasson’s installation, through its reflective and distorting qualities, implicates viewers in both the art and the surrounding architecture. It shows us caught in the act of seeing ourselves see.”
In addition to galleries, the Kemper Art Museum will include:
• Newman Money Museum (see related story)
• The 12,000-square-foot Kenneth and Nancy Kranzberg Art & Architecture Library, housing books, a slide library and other research materials for art, architecture and art history.
• Offices and classrooms for the Department of Art History & Archaeology in Arts & Sciences.
• The Whitaker Learning Lab, a new-media center.
• The Lehmann Museum Classroom.
• The Kemp Reading Room.
• The Lopata Art History Classroom.
Walker Hall
Walker Hall, located immediately east of the Kemper Art Museum, contains approximately 38,000 square feet of art studio space as well as the Shapleigh Courtyard and Terrace, enclosed along the north side, for materials and fabrication.
Like the Kemper Art Museum, Walker Hall is defined by its open, flexible floor plan and abundant natural light. Ceramics, woodworking and metalworking facilities are located on the main floor, with undergraduate sculpture studios on the lower level. The upper level features undergraduate painting as well as the interdisciplinary Nancy Spirtas Kranzberg Studio for the Illustrated Book.
All studios showcase state-of-the-art systems for art production as well as fluid floor plans designed to facilitate collaborative study and discussion.
‘Sense of community’
Jeff Pike, dean of Art, points out that Walker Hall, along with recent renovations to Bixby and Givens halls, has allowed programs previously housed at satellite facilities to return to the Danforth Campus for the first time in decades. This, he explains, already has led to a renewed sense of community within the College of Art while also fostering greater interaction among other units of the Sam Fox School.
“The opening of Walker Hall and the Kemper Art Museum will transform the experience of students and faculty in art and architecture,” Pike said. “For the first time in decades, all of the University’s undergraduate design and visual arts programs will be located in a single, central location.
“This is truly a moment for celebration.”