Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

Citing the William T. Kemper Foundation and the Kemper family as among Washington University’s strongest supporters, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton announced the foundation’s gift of $3 million.

A new book, “The Missouri Botanical Garden Climatron: A Celebration of 50 Years,” by Eric Mumford, Ph.D., professor of architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, chronicles the history and significance of the St. Louis landmark. In 1976, the Climatron was named one of the most important buildings in American architectural history by the American Institute of Architects.

Four architecture professors from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts are part of two teams that have reached the second round of an international competition to reshape the grounds surrounding St. Louis’ iconic Gateway Arch.

Chariots, a folk-indie-pop trio that delivers stripped-down vocals and diverse instrumentation over infectious beats, will launch the annual Kemper Presents Concert Series Feb. 26. In all, the series will showcase eight St. Louisl acts working in a variety of styles and genres most Friday evenings throughout the spring. 

Undergraduate tuition at Washington University in St. Louis will be $39,400 for the 2010-11 academic year — a $1,600 (4.2 percent) increase over the 2009-10 current academic tuition of $37,800. The required student activity fee will total $394, and the student health fee will be no more than $580. Barbara A. Feiner, vice chancellor for finance, made the announcement.

Allison Smith creates large-scale multimedia installations that critically engage popular forms of historical re-enactment — including sculpture, fabrics, ceramics and other traditional crafts — to redo, restage and refigure our sense of collective memory. Beginning Friday, Feb. 5, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will showcase the artist’s most recent project: the re-creation of European and American gas masks from World War I and World War II.

Los Angeles-based conceptual artist Sharon Lockhart creates films and photographs that are at once rigorously formal and deeply humanistic. Beginning Friday, Feb. 5, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum opens a major exhibit of Lockhart’s called “Lunch Break,” showcasing American workers at the Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine.

Critic and curator Yve-Alain Bois, Ph.D., a widely recognized expert on 20th century European and American art, will present a lecture titled “Chance Encounters: John Cage, Francois Morellet, Ellsworth Kelly” at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 9, in Steinberg Hall Auditorium.

Critic and curator Yve-Alain Bois, a widely recognized expert on 20th-century European and American art, will present a lecture titled “Chance Encounters: John Cage, François Morellet, Ellsworth Kelly” at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 9, in Steinberg Hall Auditorium. The talk — held in conjunction with the exhibition Chance Aesthetics, on view at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum through Jan. 4 — is cosponsored by the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ fall Public Lecture Series and the Department of Art History & Archaeology in Arts & Sciences.

John Maeda, Ph.D., one of the pioneers in integrating technology and the visual arts, will give a presentation on “Creative Leadership” for the Assembly Series. The program will begin at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 4, in Graham Chapel and is free and open to the public.