ST. LOUIS, MO.- Washington University in St. Louis will name a new $56.8 million campus center for the visual arts and design in honor of Sam Fox, one of St. Louis’ most prominent civic and philanthropic leaders and one of the University’s staunchest supporters, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton announced today.

The Sam Fox Arts Center links three academic units—the School of Architecture, the School of Art and the Department of Art History and Archaeology in Arts & Sciences—with the University’s nationally recognized Gallery of Art and Art & Architecture Library. It’s facilities will include two new buildings designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Fumihiko Maki—an art museum and a second building for the School of Art—that will be integrated, also according to Maki’s design, with three renovated structures. This integration will produce new opportunities for research, interdisciplinary study and teaching in visual arts and design.

Renovations to two of the existing buildings have been completed. Renovation of the third and construction of the new buildings will begin when funding has been secured.

Sam Fox, who has described Washington University as “the place where the whole world came alive for me,” is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Harbour Group, Ltd., a privately owned company specializing in the acquisition and development of manufacturing companies for long-term investment. A 1951 business graduate of the University, he is an emeritus trustee and chairman of the public phase of the University’s current $1.3 billion Campaign for Washington University. He and his wife, Marilyn, have long been active in numerous business, civic and cultural organizations, and they and their family foundation support many causes.

“Sam Fox is among Washington University’s most loyal and dedicated supporters,” said Wrighton, “and we are deeply indebted to him for his longstanding generosity and his many years of devoted service. Sam truly believes there is nothing more important to the future of our nation than educating our young people, and his commitment to the University is inspiring to even the most dedicated of our supporters. He is the very embodiment of the generosity of spirit that has made Washington University the world-class institution it is today.

“It is with great pleasure that we are able to recognize Sam’s special relationship with Washington University by naming the new center for the arts in his honor,” Wrighton continued. “The Sam Fox Arts Center will bring together artists, designers, architects, educators, students, patrons and the public in a world-class facility that promises to become a landmark for the entire region.”

To date, more than $39.5 million has been earmarked toward the estimated $56.8 million cost of the Center, both through the allocation of university funds and the receipt of outside commitments, including $10 million in gifts and bequests from Fox. Major commitments also have come from—among others—Linda and Harvey Saligman, and the children of Florence Steinberg and Richard K. Weil.

Sam Fox - Fox’s leadership in the St. Louis community has been extraordinary. His is currently chairman, and formerly was president, of the Greater St. Louis Area Council, Boy Scouts of America, one of the strongest scouting programs in the United States. As president of the Board of Commissioners of the St. Louis Art Museum from 1997 to 2001, he spearheaded recruitment of director Brent Benjamin and the development of a 10-year strategic plan. Today he is extending that leadership as a member of the Art Museum’s Board of Commissioners.

He serves or has served on the boards of many other St. Louis institutions and cultural groups, including the Arts & Education Council of Greater St. Louis, Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Civic Progress, The Muny in Forest Park, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, the V.P. Fair Foundation, the St. Louis Science Center and the St. Louis Zoo.

Fox and his wife, Marilyn, have supported a wide range of campus programs and initiatives over the years, including the School of Art and the John M. Olin School of Business, the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences, the School of Medicine’s Kidney Center, Edison Theatre, the Danforth Scholars Program, and scholarships in business and art. The Foxes are life Danforth Circle Members of the William Greenleaf Eliot Society. Sam Fox was elected a trustee of Washington University in 1989, served as vice chairman of the Board of Trustees from 1999 to 2001, and was then elected a trustee emeritus.

In 2002, Fox received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Washington University and was named the St. Louis Variety Club’s Man of the Year. He received the University’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1986, the John M. Olin School of Business’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1988, and the Beta Gamma Sigma Medallion for Entrepreneurship in 1996.

Sam Fox Arts Center - The Sam Fox Arts Center at Washington University will serve as a campus-wide umbrella organization for the study and promotion of visual culture.

Creation of the Sam Fox Arts Center will allow for greater collaboration between the participating units and the development of new and interdisciplinary programs, while also preserving the integrity of the distinct disciplines of architecture, art, and art history and archaeology. Additionally, it will bring students and faculty in the School of Art, now studying and working in three separate buildings—one of them a renovated former junior high school located one mile from campus—together in two adjacent buildings on the Hilltop Campus.

Mark S. Weil, Ph.D., director of the Sam Fox Arts Center and the E. Desmond Lee Professor for Collaboration in the Arts, said: “By bringing three curricular units into a consortium with our museum and library, we are embarking on a new approach to arts education. Our goal is to move away from separate practices and toward a more interactive and cross-disciplinary training that takes greater advantage of contemporary technology.”

Spearheading the fund-raising initiative for the new Center are Lee Liberman and Harvey Saligman, leadership chairs for the School of Art in the Campaign for Washington University, and Warren Shapleigh and Jerome Sincoff, leadership chairs for the School of Architecture in the capital campaign.

Site Plan - Design architect Fumihiko Maki, principal of Maki & Associates in Tokyo, Japan, is internationally renowned for creating bold, monumental structures that harmonize with their natural and urban environments.

The Sam Fox Arts Center will be located at the eastern end of the University’s Hilltop Campus, near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards. It will encompass two new limestone buildings; the Beaux Arts-era Bixby and Givens Halls, homes to the Schools of Art and Architecture, respectively; and the classically modernist Steinberg Hall, current home of the Gallery of Art, Art & Architecture Library and Department of Art History and Archaeology. Steinberg Hall was Maki’s first commissioned building, designed in the late 1950s during his tenure as a professor at the School of Architecture.

“We are extremely fortunate to be working with an architect of Maki’s caliber,” said Cynthia Weese, FAIA, dean of the School of Architecture. “His buildings are thoughtful, dignified and respectful of what is around them … beautiful and useful at the same time. The Sam Fox Arts Center will be one of only a handful of Maki’s work built in the United States, and a source of pride for all of St. Louis.”

Each of the five member areas will benefit from significant increases in programming space as well as the use of shared facilities and such amenities as a planned lunch counter/snack bar. In addition, Maki has designed a series of connecting plazas, courtyards and green spaces. A sculpture garden and reflecting pool will be located on the northern side of the Museum Building, facing Brookings Drive.

In preparation for new construction, Bixby and Givens Halls have, over the last two years, been the focus of an extensive, $16 million renovation, with an additional $1.8 million allocated to infrastructure improvements for the entire site. New construction—along with renovations to Steinberg Hall, which will provide additional studio space for both the Schools of Art and Architecture—is budgeted at approximately $39 million.

Project architect is Harish Shah, a principal of RMW Architect + Design in San Francisco and a 1973 graduate of the School of Architecture. Maki and Shah previously collaborated on the award-winning Yerba Buena Gardens Visual Arts Center in San Francisco.

Museum Building - The three-level, approximately 65,000 gross-square-foot Museum Building will be located immediately north of Steinberg Hall and will house permanent and temporary exhibition spaces—and state-of-the-art storage facilities—for the Gallery of Art, which will be renamed the Museum of Art, reflecting its status as the first art museum founded west of the Mississippi River. The building also will incorporate a gallery for the School of Art for use by faculty and students; new offices and classrooms for the Department of Art History and Archaeology; and the 13,000-square-foot Kenneth and Nancy Kranzberg Information Center.

Angela Miller, Ph.D., associate professor and acting chair of art history and archaeology, noted that the Museum Building will become a central meeting point for faculty and students in different design disciplines, both physically and programmatically.

“Already, productive exchanges have begun taking shape through joint committees and the funding of collaborative work,” Miller said. “We look forward to expanding these opportunities for interdisciplinary cooperation.”

Shirley K. Baker, vice chancellor for information technology, added that the Kranzberg Information Center will combine an expanded Art & Architecture Library with the Visual Resource Collection, a massive slide and digital image bank; and with the Whitaker Learning Lab, a media studio and technology center.

“Books remain incredibly important to students and scholars of the visual arts, but increasingly they’re supplemented by rich databases of images and online journals,” Baker said. “Grouping these services together will radically enhance their accessibility and usefulness to students from both studio and academic disciplines.”

School of Art building - The approximately 38,000-square-foot School of Art building, also three levels, will be located just north of Bixby Hall and will allow programs presently conducted at the Lewis Center in University City, the Vernon Street Graduate Studios and Washington University’s West Campus in Clayton to return to the Hilltop Campus. The new facility will include graduate studios; studios for ceramics, sculpture and painting; and the Nancy Spirtas Kranzberg Studio for the Illustrated Book.

“Currently, more than half of art and design students and faculty work and study away from Bixby Hall,” said Jeff Pike, dean of the School of Art. “The Sam Fox Arts Center will bring programs scattered between several off-campus sites to the Hilltop, fostering both a greater sense of community within the school and a greater degree of interaction with our colleagues in other creative areas.”