Drake University opened Meredith Hall in 1965. (Photo: Bobby Griffith / Drakeapedia) By Michael Morain Every week, we fill this newsletter with fun local stuff to see and do and, often, eat. Most of the recommendations are easy to explain with a quick note: what, when, where. But here in Des Moines, there’s also an endless array of learning opportunities — tours, lectures and other thought-provoking events that are harder to sum up in a pithy blurb. On any given day, you can attend a program at the Des Moines Public Library, a workshop at the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden, a post-show talk at the Varsity Cinema, and so on. Three such events popped up on our radar for the upcoming week. If you go, we guarantee you’ll learn something new and won’t have to take a test. Celebrating Meredith Hall: A Mies Masterpiece Renewed 7-9:30 p.m. Saturday, Drake University’s Meredith Hall In the middle of the 20th century, the “less is more” architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe revolutionized modern architecture with elegantly minimalist buildings that epitomized the new International Style. Two of them happen to be in Des Moines: the 1962 building that now houses the Catholic Pastoral Center, at 601 Grand Ave., and Meredith Hall, built in 1965 for Drake University’s best and brightest – the journalism students. (We may be biased.) At Saturday’s ticketed open house at Meredith Hall, guests can tour the recent restoration, examine original blueprints and early photos, try out some swanky midcentury modern furniture and, at 8 p.m., see a documentary about the family Mies left behind in Nazi Germany. Gallery Talk: Samantha Box and Mia Laufer 1 p.m. Sunday, Des Moines Art Center What happens to someone’s identity when they cross a border? Which parts do they keep, and which do they leave behind? These are the central questions in “Caribbean Dreams,” the exhibition that opens Thursday night at the Des Moines Art Center. It’s Samantha Box’s first solo museum show, with more than 60 photos plus a multimedia installation that evolved from a series she calls “Portable Homelands.” Box will discuss her work during Sunday’s free gallery talk with the museum’s former curator, Mia Laufer, who organized the show before her recent departure. They’ll take a look at how Box’s artwork reflects her early years in Jamaica, her family’s roots in Trinidad and South Asia, and the broader swirl of Caribbean history, where cultures have mixed and scattered for centuries like the trade winds. Ta-Nehisi Coates and Rekha Basu 6:30 p.m. Monday, Franklin Event Center In his latest book, “The Message,” released just last week, the influential writer and activist Ta-Nehisi Coates connects the dots between three places he recently visited: Senegal, South Carolina (where his earlier book was banned) and Palestine. In the intertwining essays, he considers “how the stories we tell — and the ones we don’t — shape our realities.” The book makes a case for the power of truth in the fight for justice. At Monday’s ticketed event, Coates will discuss his new book with Rekha Basu, who shone a light on similar issues for 30 years in her columns for the Des Moines Register. The program also includes a poetry reading by the Iowa City writer Caleb “The Negro Artist” Rainey.