Author: Liam Otten

In 1630, John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, proclaimed to fellow Puritan settlers that “we shall be as a city upon a hill.” In this video, Abram Van Engen examines the surprising history of Winthrop’s striking image and its subsequent adoption by presidents John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.

Architecture shapes our environment – but studying architecture shapes how we see, understand and interpret the world around us. Over the last 10 years, the Alberti Program in Washington University’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts has introduced hundreds of kids, ranging from 8- to 15-years-old, to the power and potential of architecture and design.

Mark Sparks, principal flute for the St. Louis Symphony, and pianist Peter Henderson will launch the Danforth University Center’s fall Chamber Music Series Sept. 27 with music of Max Bruch, Gabriel Fauré and Claude Debussy.

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum boasts one of the nation’s finest university collections. This time-lapse video offers a behind-the-scenes look at the installation of “Real/Radical/Psychological,” the largest display of the permanent collection in the museum’s history.

On Friday, Sept. 9, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will mark the 10th anniversary of the school’s founding and the opening of the Museum’s Fumihiko Maki-designed building. The celebration will include food, music, an exhibition showcasing the museum’s permanent collection and a special one-night-only project by celebrated alumna Ebony G. Patterson.

The Department of Music in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis will dedicate its recently renovated Pillsbury Theatre Sept. 10 in honor of Mary Pillsbury Wainwright and her parents, Joyce Sanborn Pillsbury and Carol Fleming Pillsbury. The 300-seat Art Deco space boasts a Steinway piano and a terrazzo floor. It regularly hosts concerts, recitals, classes and other intimate events.

St. Louis piano legend Ptah Williams will join Washington University in St. Louis guitarist William Lenihan and drummer Steve Davis to launch the fall Jazz at Holmes Series Thursday, Sept. 8.

The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Art will launch its fall Public Lecture Series Sept. 14 and 19 with architect Xiaodu Liu and artist Dario Robleto. Subsequent speakers will include legendary illustrator Seymour Chwast and celebrated alumni Laylah Ali and Tom Friedman.

Coloratura soprano Amy Owens will perform Richard Strauss’ notoriously difficult “Amor” Sept. 18 as part of Washington University’s annual Liederabend. Also on the program will be music of Johannes Brahms, Franz Schubert, Antonin Dvořák and Carl Millöcker.

For all the advances of modern medicine, health-care architecture has long been guided by custom and intuition rather than research and testing. That’s changing, thanks to an emerging field known as evidence-based design, said Xiaobo Quan, director of Washington University’s newly formed Center for Health Research & Design.