Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

Images of children locked in prison-like conditions have sparked heated debates about U.S. immigration policy, the role of the built environment, and the line between legitimate security and intentional cruelty. But underlying such debates is a simple question: “Is it possible to design a border architecture that is welcoming rather than foreboding?”

The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ 2019 MFA in Visual Art Thesis Exhibition features work by 17 graduating students. Works in various media explore themes such as the politics of race, the role of gender, the poetics of the everyday, and utopian or dystopian futures.

With speeds of nearly 700 miles per hour, hyperloop technology has the potential to revolutionize land-based transportation. But with that revolution comes new challenges for both urban destinations and rural environments. This spring, students and faculty from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts worked with Virgin Hyperloop One to investigate the impacts and potentials of the proposed Missouri route from St. Louis to Kansas City.

As a kid biking the streets of Kinloch and Ferguson, Mo., Ryan A. Wilson was drawn to construction sites. Now the Sam Fox School master’s candidate is working on ambitious projects and exploring architecture’s capacity for rebuilding community.

The newly expanded and renovated Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will reopen with a major exhibition of work by Ai Weiwei. The renowned Chinese dissident artist and activist is known all over the world for rigorous, compassionate and complex artworks that address themes of political, ethical and social urgency. “Ai Weiwei: Bare Life” opens Sept. 28 and will feature more than 35 artworks created over the last two decades in a wide variety of media — including a handful of newly conceived, large-scale and site-specific projects and major pieces never before exhibited in the United States.

University Libraries announced the winners of its annual Neureuther Student Book Collection Essay Competition. The competition encourages students to read for enjoyment and to develop personal libraries throughout their lives.

“Ash is Cold,” a solo exhibition featuring new work by Tim Portlock, associate professor of art at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, is on view through May 3 at Monaco, the artist-owned cooperative gallery.

This week’s fire at Notre Dame in Paris, which destroyed the Cathedral’s iconic spire and much of the roof, gripped the world and led to outpourings of support. But the damage could have been far worse, said architectural historian Eric Mumford.

Cities are both a leading cause and victim of global climate change, but they also hold great promise. In the first installment of Class Acts, a series celebrating the Class of 2019, seniors Marissa Lerner and Alexis Vidaurreta share their optimism and respective visions for cities that protect people and resources.

Arthur Osver won international acclaim for his evocative depictions of the American city. And though his work evolved, that ramshackle topography remained part of his painterly DNA. So argues art history Professor Angela Miller in “Arthur Osver: Urban Landscape, Abstraction, and the Mystique of Place” (2019).