5:30–6:30 pm Online
Physics & Contemporary Architecture Guest Lecture Series Spring ‘21
The University of Chicago Physics Profs. Sid Nagel and Heinrich Jaeger invite the public to the 8 lectures of the course PHSC11800 Physics & Contemporary Architecture, featuring a top flight of architects and structural engineers discussing contemporary structures and their relationship to physics. All lectures take place on Thursdays at 5:30pm CST and will be presented online as live video conferences. View for more information and to register.
Richard Talaske, Talaske Group
Rick Talaske relishes great soundscapes. The engineer-turned-scientist-turned-acoustician routinely explores the world’s great concert halls and theaters. Surveying a hall’s soaring spaces and elegant architectural expressions, his mind translates a room’s geometry, the character of its surfaces, its materials, and spatial dimensions into acoustic possibilities. Analysis, investigation, and reverence converge to plumb the space’s possibilities — to take away whatever secrets and lessons it might reveal. Talaske is someone who is never satisfied with what he already knows. Clients expect that Talaske’s rigorous technical and scientific education would result in exacting methodology and specific design standards. He is cheerily unapologetic about what might be experienced as “obsession with sound.” People don’t hire a world-class acoustician to achieve only fair results. What surprises some people is his passionate and enthusiastic advocacy for both performers and audience members. As an avid lover of live performance himself, he strives to create spaces that enhance live events. Before founding his acoustical consulting firm nearly 20 years ago, Talaske was a protegé of Larry Kirkegaard, advancing quickly to senior consultant where he was assigned major design and project management responsibilities for the Portland Center for Performing Arts, Bayfront Center St. Petersburg, Ordway Music Theatre, and many music education facilities.