Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

Acclaimed architect Kathryn Dean, founding partner of Dean/Wolf Architects in New York City, has been appointed director of the Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

Courtesy photoSpiral HouseAcclaimed architect Kathryn Dean, founding partner of Dean/Wolf Architects in New York City, has been appointed director of the Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. She previously served on the faculty of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture.

Courtesy photo*The Mystery of Edwin Drood*St. Louis native John Ezell is one of contemporary theater’s most influential scenic designers. Over the last five decades the Washington University alumnus has created hundreds of sets for major regional, national and international companies and festivals. Next month the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ Des Lee Gallery will present Bold Strokes and Finesse: The Stage Designs of John Ezell. The exhibition will include drawings, models, painter elevations and other material surveying the breadth and scope of Ezell’s work.

Elizabeth ArmstrongElizabeth Armstrong, curator of Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, will discuss the exhibition at 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20, at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. Armstrong’s talk will explore the motivations, processes and scholarship that went into creating this sprawling multimedia installation, which opens at the museum Sept. 19 and remains on view through Jan. 5, 2009.

Lorser Feitelson, *Dichotomic Organization*From painting and architecture to music, film, furniture and the graphic arts, 1950s Los Angeles was an epicenter of American modernism. This fall the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will present Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, a sprawling multimedia exhibition that investigates how the sleek West Coast aesthetic — at once playful and poised, laid-back and sharply articulated — emerged as cultural shorthand for crisp sophistication.

Karl Benjamin, *Black Pillars,* 1957.From retail furnishings to international auction houses, recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in midcentury modernism, an influential design aesthetic that flourished between the mid-1930s and the mid-1960s. During the 2008-09 academic year the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will host two major exhibitions exploring both the breadth and the cultural impact of midcentury modernism, through such mediums as painting, sculpture, architecture, interior design, film, music and the graphic arts.

Ronald Leax, the Halsey Cooley Ives Professor of Art, has been named dean of art, according to Carmon Colangelo, dean of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Leax will lead the College of Art and the Graduate School of Art. The one-year appointment will begin July 1. Leax will succeed dean Jeff Pike, who is the Jane Reuter Hitzeman and Herbert F. Hitzeman, Jr., Professor in Art. Pike has served as dean of art since 1999. He will return to full-time teaching following a sabbatical year.

Ronald Leax, the Halsey Cooley Ives Professor of Art, has been named dean of art, according to Carmon Colangelo, dean of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Leax will lead the College of Art and the Graduate School of Art, succeeding Jeff Pike, the Jane Reuter Hitzeman and Herbert F. Hitzeman, Jr. Professor in Art.

Photo by Joe AngelesOver the last several months, a group of architecture students have designed two projects to help rebuild neighborhoods and communities in New Orleans.

St. Thomas Seven Pepper Hot Sauce is one of the hottest pepper sauces in New Orleans, grown and bottled at God’s Vineyard Community Garden, 918 Felicity St. Yet like much of the city, this nonprofit farm was severely affected by Hurricane Katrina. Over the last several months a group of St. Louis architecture students have collaborated with garden founders Earl Antwine and Noel Jones to reestablish God’s Vineyard by designing, building and installing a new chicken coop. At the same time, the students also have been working with the Good Work Network on redevelopment plans for the Franz Building, located at 2016 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. The latter project was recently named a finalist in the 2008 JP Morgan Chase Community Development Competition.