26th Annual Summer Celebration Dinner
The Aspen Institute marked its 26th Annual Summer Celebration Dinner at the Aspen Institute’s campus in Aspen, Colorado on Saturday, August 3rd. Graciously co-chaired by Kim and Rob Coretz and Rachel Kohler and Mark Hoplamazian, the evening began with a public conversation featuring Frank O. Gehry, world renowned architect and recipient of the 2019 Aspen Institute Arts Leadership Award and Jeanne Gang, Founding Principal, Studio Gang. The program in the Greenwald Pavilion was followed by a special reception, dinner and award presentation at the Doerr-Hosier Center immediately following.
Arts Leadership Award
The Arts Leadership Award, established in 2012, recognizes a seminal figure in American arts and culture whose contributions have inspired and challenged us, and fostered dialogue and mutual understanding among people of diverse backgrounds and perspectives. The recipient will have tested the limits of existing art forms and used art in innovative ways to help us examine ourselves and our society. His or her work has uniquely enriched our culture and left an indelible mark on the creative output of generations to come.
Frank Gehry
Raised in Toronto, Canada, Frank Gehry moved in 1947 with his family to Los Angeles where he subsequently received his Bachelor of Architecture degree at the University of Southern California in 1954. Upon graduating, he enlisted in the US Army and with the assistance of the GI Bill, he studied City Planning at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design until 1957. Since then, Mr. Gehry has built an architectural career that has spanned over six decades and he has produced public and private buildings throughout the world. His work has earned Mr. Gehry several of the most significant awards in the architectural field, including the Pritzker Prize.
Notable projects include Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain; Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California; Eight Spruce Street Residential Tower in New York City, New York; Opus Hong Kong Residential in Hong Kong, China; Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, France; the Biomuseo in Panama City, Panama; the Dr. Chau Chak Wing Building for the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia; the West Campus for Facebook in Menlo Park, California; and the Boulez Hall in Berlin, Germany.
Current projects include the King Street Development in Toronto, Ontario; the Grand Avenue Project in Los Angeles, California; 8150 Sunset in Los Angeles, California; the Ocean Avenue Project in Santa Monica, California; the World Jewish Museum in Tel Aviv, Israel; the Los Angeles River revitalization project in Los Angeles, California; a new center for the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA) in Inglewood, California; and single-family residential projects in Atherton, California; Los Angeles, California; and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Projects under construction include the LUMA / Parc des Ateliers in Arles, France; Philadelphia Museum of Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Facebook Campus in Menlo Park, California; the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington D.C.; La Maison LVMH – Arts, Talents, Patrimoine in Paris, France; the Battersea Power Station Development in London, England; and the Louis Vuitton Gallery in Seoul, South Korea.
Jeanne Gang
Architect Jeanne Gang is the founding principal of Studio Gang, an architecture and urban design practice headquartered in Chicago with offices in New York City, San Francisco, and Paris. Drawn to both the artistic and technical aspects of architecture, Jeanne is known for a design process that is simultaneously creative and analytical. Understanding architecture as a practice of “relationship building,” her approach focuses on creating striking places that connect people with each other, their communities, and the environment—a goal that feels increasingly urgent in today’s world.
Designed to operate as a collective, Jeanne’s Studio emphasizes research, experimentation, teamwork, and collaboration with experts from inside and outside the traditional design fields. The Studio’s award-winning body of work includes cultural centers that convene diverse audiences; public and civic projects that connect citizens with ecology; installations that challenge material properties; and high-rise towers that foster a sense of community. Notable among these projects are Writers Theatre, a professional theater for a company north of Chicago; the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan; and the 82-story, undulating Aqua Tower in downtown Chicago. Intertwined with their built work, Jeanne and the Studio also develop research and related projects such as publications and exhibitions that push design’s ability to create public awareness and give rise to change—a practice they call “actionable idealism.”
Jeanne and Studio Gang are currently designing major cultural and civic projects throughout the Americas and Europe. These include the expansion of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City; the new United States Embassy in Brasília, Brazil; the University of Chicago’s European hub for study and research in Paris, France; a unified campus for the California College of the Arts in San Francisco; and the new Global Terminal and Global Concourse at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. Mixed-use towers in Toronto, Los Angeles, Honolulu, and Amsterdam are also underway.
A MacArthur Fellow and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Jeanne has been honored with the National Design Award in Architecture and was named one of 2019’s most influential people in the world by TIME magazine. She is the author of three books on architecture, with a new monograph on her work slated for publication in spring of 2020. The work of Studio Gang has been honored and exhibited widely and is in the permanent collection of the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Jeanne is a Professor in Practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, her alma mater, where she has taught graduate design studios since 2011. Her current teaching and research focus on the social, environmental, and philosophical potential of building materials and building reuse. In addition to her academic endeavors, she also serves on various civic and design-related advisory groups and lectures throughout the world.
If you have any questions, or are unable to attend the dinner, but would like to support this important event, please contact Dianna Shypailo by email at Dianna.Shypailo@aspeninstitute.org or by phone at 202-736-3503.