Friday 2/15 – Thursday 2/21
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16 SATURDAY Why, during World War II, was the brilliant German scientist Werner Heisenberg, a student of famed nuclear physicist Niels Bohr and a Nobel Prize winner, unable to unlock the secrets of the atom? Did he intentionally hold back Nazi research, as some argue, hoping to save the world from a nuclear Hitler? Or was there a less heroic reason? (Say, the fact that the Nazis murdered or drove into exile plenty of scientists, like Einstein and Bohr, who might have helped him out.) These and other questions will be discussed at today’s Copenhagen symposium on the campus of the University of Chicago, site of the first self-sustaining nuclear reaction. The free forum will be moderated by U. of C. astronomer and astrophysicist Doug Duncan and features his colleagues Peter Freund, a physicist who knew Heisenberg, and Joseph Masco, an anthropologist whose work focuses on cold-war culture. Also on the panel are Albert Wattenberg of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who worked on the Manhattan Project, and Kelly AuCoin, understudy for the role of Heisenberg in the current Shubert Theatre engagement of Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen. The play presents a fictionalized account of Heisenberg’s 1941 meeting with Bohr, at which, according to speculation, he either pumped Bohr for information or decided the Nazis should never get the bomb. The symposium is from 3 to 5 at the Oriental Institute, 1155 E. 58th, and reservations are required; call 773-753-4472. Copenhagen runs through February 24 at the Shubert, 22 W. Monroe. For tickets call 312-902-1400.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s anorectic motto “less is more” inspired hundreds of architects to erect thousands of high-rise steel-and-glass boxes, none as graceful as his own transcendent designs, which include the IBM Building, the Illinois Institute of Technology campus, and the Federal Plaza. The traveling retrospective Mies in America, which focuses on his work after he emigrated to Chicago from Germany in 1937, opens today and runs through May 26 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago. The exhibit features 220 of the architect’s drawings, 60 photographs, and models of four of his projects. Related events include a panel discussion, “Mies and His Legacy,” on February 19, a symposium March 8 and 9, and architecture tours around Chicago. The museum is open from 10 to 8 on Tuesdays and 10 to 5 Wednesdays through Sundays; admission is $10, $6 for students and seniors, and free for kids 12 and under. Everyone gets in for free on Tuesdays. Call 312-280-2660.
21 THURSDAY It may clash with the macho image of Chicago as hog butcher, wheat stacker, and railroad capital, but in the years following the Great Chicago Fire the city also became a world center for stained glass. Hundreds of artisans moved to Chicago as it rebuilt, forming their own studios and creating work to satisfy the era’s vogue for the medium. Some firms, like Healy and Millet, specialized in large-scale projects, creating the windows for the Auditorium Building and the Stock Exchange ceiling after Louis Sullivan’s designs. Other, smaller firms created humbler–but no less beautiful–windows for residential two-flats. Rolf Achilles, curator of the Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows, will deliver a free talk on Chicago’s stained glass, sponsored by the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois (312-922-1742), at 12:15 at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington. Bring your own lunch.
