Aspen Institute President and CEO Dan Porterfield introduced the 2019 Summer Celebration Conversation featuring architect Frank Gehry on August 3, 2019 in Aspen, CO. Follow him on Twitter @DanPorterfield.
Thank you, Jim, for that introduction, for your leadership of our Board of Trustees, and for all of the ways that the Crown Family supports the Aspen Institute—including your family’s donation to the Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies.
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for being here. It’s a privilege to introduce this conversation, and we are so pleased to be able to welcome and honor with the Aspen Institute’s 2019 Arts Leadership Award an architect who “defies categorization”—the remarkable Frank Gehry.
I’ll introduce Mr. Gehry in a moment, but let me once again extend the thanks of the Aspen Institute and this community to Lynda and Stewart Resnick for their transformational gift to establish the Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies. This investment is of extraordinary vision and value and will make a difference on this campus, for this Institute, and in the community of Aspen for generations to come.
I’d also like to thank Kim and Rob Coretz, Rachel Kohler, and Mark Hoplamazian for graciously co-chairing tonight’s celebration.
We are honored this evening to welcome to our stage the world-renowned architect Frank Gehry.
Mr. Gehry’s architectural career spans more than six decades and his creations include, among many others, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. He has earned many of the most illustrious awards in the architectural field, including the Pritzker Prize.
Mr. Gehry is an ideal recipient of an Aspen Institute award in the arts. He exemplifies what it means to be a seminal, values-driven leader, inspiring innovation across our culture and pushing the limits of what art can do in society. His work will leave an unmatched, unending influence.
Joining Mr. Gehry in conversation this afternoon will be Jeanne Gang, founding principal of Studio Gang, an architecture and urban design practice in Chicago and New York. Ms. Gang is also a 2011 MacArthur Fellow and Professor of Practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. We’re grateful that she’s with us to moderate this conversation.
Please join me in welcoming Frank Gehry and Jeanne Gang to the stage.
