2007 EVENTS

2007 Gala
Our November 12th Gala Reception and Art Auction in the Gehry-designed IAC building in the heart of Chelsea honoring architect Frank O. Gehry was a resounding success! Special Guest, Adi Nes, architect Moshe Safdie and IAC Chairman Barry Diller joined us along with many Bezalel graduates.

Event participants included:

Frank O. Gehry
Mr. Gehry received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Southern California in 1954, and he studied City Planning at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. In subsequent years, Mr. Gehry has built an architectural career that has spanned four decades and produced public and private buildings in America, Europe and Asia. His work has earned Mr. Gehry several of the most significant awards in the architectural field, including the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture, the Pritzker Prize, the Wolf Prize in Art (Architecture), the Praemium Imperiale Award, the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Award, the National Medal of Arts, the Friedrich Kiesler Prize, the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal, and the Royal Institute of British Architects Gold Medal. Significant projects include: the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Bilbao, Spain; the DZ Bank Building in Berlin, Germany; Der Neue Zollhof, an office complex in Düsseldorf, Germany; the Nationale-Nederlanden Building in Prague, Czech Republic; the Jay Pritzker Pavilion and BP Bridge in Millennium Park in Chicago, Illinois; the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California; the IAC Building in New York, New York; the Hotel Marqués de Riscal in Elciago, Spain.

Moshe Safdie
Moshe Safdie was born in Haifa, Israel, in 1938 and later moved to Canada, graduating from McGill University in 1961 with a degree in architecture. After apprenticing with Louis I. Kahn in Philadelphia, he returned to Montreal, taking charge of the master plan for the 1967 World Exhibition, where he also realized an adaptation of his thesis as Habitat ‘67, the central feature of the World’s Fair. In 1970, Safdie established a Jerusalem branch office, commencing an intense involvement with the rebuilding of Jerusalem. He was responsible for major segments of the restoration of the Old City and the reconstruction of the new center, linking the Old and New Cities. Over the years, his involvement expanded and included the new city of Modi’in, the new Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, and the Rabin Memorial Center. In 1978, following teaching at Yale, McGill, and Ben Gurion Universities, Safdie relocated his residence and principal office to Boston, as he became Director of the Urban Design Program and the Ian Woodner Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In addition to major works of urbanism, Safdie’s current work includes two airports—Lester B. Pearson International Airportin Toronto and Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv.

Adi Nes
Adi Nes was born in 1966 and graduated from the Department of Photography at Bezalel in 1992. He is internationally recognized as one of Israel’s most celebrated contemporary photographers. Staging his photographs with meticulous attention to composition and detail, Adi bases his creations on well-known works in art history, transposing them into contemporary settings. He plans and constructs each one of his images like a film director, working for extended periods of time on each series of photographs. In New York he is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery.