Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

“Improvisation isn’t matter of just making any ol’ thing up,” jazz great Wynton Marsalis once observed. “Jazz, like any language, has its own grammar and vocabulary.” On Thursday, Oct. 4, guitarist William Lenihan and poet Eileen G’Sell will put that analogy to the test with “The New Beat Generation,” an evening of improvised music and poetry, presented as part of the Jazz at Holmes Series.

Last fall, students from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts created Parking Plot, a subversive look at just what constitutes “urban nature.” Now, Parking Plot is one of two projects with ties to the Sam Fox School included in the U.S. Pavilion of the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale — arguably the profession’s leading international showcase. In addition, Peter MacKeith, associate dean of the Sam Fox School and associate professor of architecture, curated the Nordic Pavilion in its entirety.

Chelsea Clinton announced during the annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York on Sept. 25 that Washington University in St. Louis will serve as the host of the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U), April 5-7, 2013, on the Danforth Campus.  President Bill Clinton launched CGI U in 2007 to engage the next generation of leaders on college campuses around the world. Each year, CGI U hosts a meeting where students, youth organizations, topic experts, and celebrities discuss solutions to pressing global issues.

Two new interdisciplinary exective education courses bring together experts from across the Danforth Campus to explore emerging concepts that will impact the future of industries, economies and the environment. The two-day and three-day seminars will take place near the end of October.

Public art is a tricky beast. Sometimes you get the Gateway Arch or Citygarden or Laumeier Sculpture Park. Sometimes you don’t. The key is integration, says Leslie Markle, who recently joined the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum as its inaugural curator for public art.

Take a deep breath. Smooth your brow. Raise your hands and stomp your feet. It’s time to talk about art. Welcome to Kemper Art Reaches Everyone (KARE), a new arts engagement program designed for people with early-onset to moderate Alzheimer’s.

Painter and poet Edward Boccia, professor emeritus of art in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, died Monday, Sept. 3, in his home in Webster Groves, from pneumonia. He was 91.

Good design can be many things: a book, a poster, a smart phone. But increasingly, designers are being asked not only to create objects, but to address large-scale social problems, from poverty to sustainability to eating disorders. In September, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts will launch its fall Public Lecture Series with two speakers, Jon Kolko and Cynthia E. Smith, who are rethinking the role of contemporary design.

WUSTL’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and Tarlton Corporation will build a sample “intelligent house” next to the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum Aug. 18. The project comes as part of preparations for Design with the Other 90%: CITIES, a major survey exhibition illustrating the profound, transformative and sometimes lifesaving power of innovative design.

Solar lanterns. Bicycle-powered cell phone chargers. A personal water-purifier the size of a large straw. Today, some of the world’s most creative, challenging and sophisticated design is found not in museums or showrooms, but in the poor, makeshift urban settlements that collectively house nearly a billion people. This fall, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present Design with the Other 90%: CITIES, a major survey that aims to expand contemporary definitions of just what constitutes “good design.”