Heritage Ball 2008

Heritage Ball 2008 sponsorship opportunities are now available. Join Dinner Chair Aby Rosen of RFR Holding on the Dinner Committee today. Click HERE to download the Reservation Form.

This year’s Heritage Ball will recognize a highly distinguished group of individuals who have tirelessly demonstrated their commitment to the importance of design in New York City and beyond. Studio Daniel Libeskind, will receive the 2008 President’s Award, for the firm’s significant contributions to the design of major international cultural buildings and urban projects. MaryAnne Gilmartin, Executive Vice President, Commercial Development & Director of Corporate Leasing & Business Development for Forest City Ratner Companies, will be honored for her dedication to the improvement of the City’s urban fabric through her design excellence in New York City’s development. Commissioner Shaun Donovan of New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development will receive the Center for Architecture Award for his exemplary dedication to Design Excellence and the enhancement of the quality of New York City’s housing and preservation initiatives. We look forward to presenting the 2008 Foundation Award to The Robin Hood Foundation, for The L!brary Initiative which seeks to reverse patterns of low literacy skills and underachievement by working with community school districts and public elementary schools to design, build, equip, and staff new elementary school libraries in New York City.

Award Recipients

Studio Daniel Libeskind

2008 President’s Award

Daniel Libeskind, B.Arch. M.A. BDA AIA is an international figure in architectural practice and urban design. He is well known for introducing a new critical discourse into architecture and for his multidisciplinary approach. His practice extends from building major cultural and commercial institutions to universities, hotels, and residential work. He also designs opera sets and maintains an object design studio. Born in postwar Poland in 1946, Mr. Libeskind became an American citizen in 1965. He studied music in Israel and New York, becoming a virtuoso performer. He left music to study architecture, receiving his professional architectural degree in 1970 from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City. He received a postgraduate degree in History and Theory of Architecture at the School of Comparative Studies at Essex University (England) in 1972.

In 1989, Daniel Libeskind established his architectural studio in Berlin, Germany. During the same year, he won the competition for the Jewish Museum Berlin, which opened to the public in September 2001 to wide public acclaim. Upon winning the World Trade Center design competition in February 2003, Studio Daniel Libeskind moved its headquarters to New York City. The office is now headquartered two blocks south of the original World Trade Center site.

Nina Libeskind, Chief Operating Officer and full Partner of Studio Daniel Libeskind, is responsible for the overall management, financial, administrative and resource control of the Studio. Prior to working with her husband at Studio Daniel Libeskind, she worked in the USA, Canada, and Great Britain in the areas of management, labor negotiations, research and politics. Since 1990, the office has been fortunate to be involved in a diverse array of urban, architectural, and cultural projects. The office, with 70 permanent staff members, has won commissions for major cultural buildings and significant urban projects in Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Canada, United States, Japan, Spain, Israel, Mexico, Korea, and Singapore.

MaryAnne Gilmartin

2008 AIA New York Chapter Award

As an Executive Vice President for Forest City Ratner Companies, MaryAnne Gilmartin manages the Commercial & Residential Development division and the Atlantic Yards Development Group.

In this capacity, Ms. Gilmartin oversees the company’s most ambitious projects: the 8 million square foot Frank Gehry-designed Atlantic Yards redevelopment—which features the Barclays Center, the future home of the NBA Nets franchise, and over 6,400 units of mixed-income housing; the Frank Gehry-designed Beekman residential project, which will be the tallest residential building in the city.

Ms. Gilmartin also developed the 1.5 million square foot New York Times Building in midtown Manhattan, designed by Renzo Piano and opened in 2007. She also spearheads the leasing of the company's Brooklyn office portfolio, which consists of 7 million square feet.

Ms. Gilmartin has worked at FCRC for 15 years and during that time has played a key role in the transformation and revitalization of the Times Square area. Prior to the New York Times building, she led the development of the 335,000-square-foot 42nd Street retail-entertainment project.

A summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Fordham University where she also received her Masters. Ms Gilmartin serves on the Board of Directors of the Times Square Alliance and the New York Building Congress. In addition, she is a member of the New York City Ballet Advisory Board; REBNY Board of Governors; Advisory Board of NYU Real Estate Institute; AIA New York Chapter; and the Architectural League of New York.

Ms. Gilmartin was chosen ‘2007 Woman of the Year’ by WX, New York Women Executives in Real Estate. She was also named to Crain’s 2007 list of New York City’s Top 100 Most Influential Women. In 2003, she was selected by Crain’s as one of their ‘40 under 40’ rising stars.

Ms. Gilmartin lives in Westchester with her husband, daughter, and two sons.

Prior to joining Forest City, Ms. Gilmartin served as Assistant Vice President for Commercial Development at the New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC) during the Koch and Dinkins administrations, managing the City’s multi-million-dollar corporate retention program which kept companies such as Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley, Chase Manhattan Bank and in New York City.

Commissioner Shaun Donovan

2008 Center for Architecture Award

Mr. Donovan was appointed Commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) in March 2004 by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. HPD is the largest municipal developer of affordable housing in the nation. Since 1987, HPD has provided over $6.3 billion to support the repair, rehabilitation and new construction of hundreds of thousands of units of housing.

Commissioner Donovan is leading HPD in implementing Mayor Bloomberg’s ten-year $7.5 billion New Housing Marketplace Plan, which will provide 165,000 affordable homes for 500,000 New Yorkers. The housing plan is the largest municipal housing plan in the nation’s history, and is cultivating innovative partnerships and pioneering new tools in affordable housing.

Before joining the Bloomberg administration, Commissioner Donovan worked at Prudential Mortgage Capital Company as managing director of its FHA lending and affordable housing investments. Prior to Prudential Mortgage Capital, he was a visiting scholar at New York University, where he researched and wrote about the preservation of federally-assisted housing.

Until March of 2001, he was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multifamily Housing at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the primary federal official responsible for privately-owned affordable multifamily housing. At HUD, he ran housing subsidy programs that provided over $9 billion annually to 1.7 million families and oversaw a portfolio of 30,000 multifamily properties with over 2 million housing units.

Prior to joining HUD, he worked at the Community Preservation Corporation (CPC) in New York City, a non-profit lender and developer of affordable housing. He also researched and wrote about housing policy at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University and worked as an architect in New York and Italy. He holds Masters degrees in Public Administration and Architecture from Harvard University.

The Robin Hood Foundation

2008 Center for Architecture Foundation Award

Robin Hood finds, funds and partners with the most effective schools and programs in the New York City’s poorest neighborhoods. These groups save the lives and change the fates of those who battle educational failure, joblessness, teen pregnancy, abuse, AIDS, hunger and homelessness. In 2007, donor generosity helped Robin Hood invest $138 million in 230 grants and initiatives. The board of directors pays all administrative, fundraising and evaluation costs. That means 100 percent of donations goes directly to organizations serving families who struggle against poverty.

Charitable investments are protected by independent third-party evaluation as well as management assistance from Robin Hood’s experts and pro bono consultants from top firms. In 2007, Robin Hood completed 278 management, legal and real estate projects for 110 groups.

In a field without a history of proven metrics, benefit-cost ratios capture Robin Hood’s best estimate of the aggregate benefit to poor people (measured in part by the projected boost in future earnings) that each grant creates per dollar cost to Robin Hood. Such ratios guide investment decisions as financial rates of return guide investors’ decisions. The average dollar allocated by Robin Hood has an estimated return of $12 in lifetime value.

Robin Hood also launches initiatives to address unmet needs. For example, the L!brary Initiative, a partnership with the New York City Department of Education and the School Construction Authority, promotes achievement by designing, building, equipping and staffing new elementary school libraries in poor neighborhoods.

Aby Rosen

Dinner Chair

Aby J. Rosen co-founded RFR Holding LLC, a privately held real estate investment, development and management firm based in Manhattan in 1991. RFR boasts a portfolio of 19 office properties, including some of the New York City’s most prominent landmarks such as the Seagram Building and Lever House. RFR controls approximately 7.5 million square feet of prime office space and 1.5 million square feet of retail space in Manhattan, South Beach and Las Vegas as well as 2,500 luxury residential apartments in New York City.

Before founding RFR, Mr. Rosen earned a law degree from Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany and worked as an Investment Advisor with Jones Lang Wootton. Mr. Rosen is a dedicated philanthropist, involved with the UJA Federation, the Jeffrey Modell Foundation, the Real Estate Council of Carnegie Hall, the Grand Central Partnership, and Israel Bonds. Mr. Rosen is also recognized as one of today’s leading patrons of contemporary art; he serves as an active board member for the New Museum of Contemporary Art and is heavily involved with the Whitney Museum of American Art.