2025 Socrates Gala

Thank you for joining us! The 2025 Gala was held on Thursday, June 5. Please view our program online here and event photos here.  Thanks to our honorees and speakers, as well as Yolanda Hoskey (photographer), Greater Good Events (event planners), and our local partners: Diamond Dogs; Singlecut Brewery; Fern Botanica; Queens Perennial; Sanford’s Astoria; and Plant Specialists. HONOREES  | STEERING COMMITTEE | VENUE Honoring NAT OPPENHEIMER   Senior Vice President, Buildings Sector,  TYLin Nat Oppenheimer leads the Buildings sector at TYLin, and in his leadership role at Silman, was critical in the development of The CUBES.  He has extensive experience in the areas of new construction, renovation, sustainable engineering, and historic preservation, as principal in charge of much of the firm’s institutional, private residential, and educational work. With a deep concern for working conditions for people around the world, Nat has been an active member of the Grace Farms Foundation Architecture + Construction Working Group, an interdisciplinary group of A/E leaders who are advocating to end the use of modern slavery in the supply chain and labor for the built environment. Nat is also devoted to engineering education and teaches at the Graduate School of Architecture at Princeton University. He has also taught courses at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, and at Parsons, the New School for Design. LOT-EK, Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano Design and Architecture Firm LOT-EK is a design studio based in New York, known for its innovative approach to architecture and design through the adaptive reuse of industrial materials. Founded in 1993 by Italian architects Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano, LOT-EK has been involved in a wide range of projects, including residential, commercial, and institutional projects both in the US and internationally. LOT-EK has also undertaken projects for major cultural institutions and museums, such as MoMA, the Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim, the MAXXI and many more. The feature length documentary about their work, We Start with the Things We Find by Thomas Piper, premiered in 2023. LOT-EK is the award-winning designer of Socrates’ permanent structure, The CUBES, which was opened April 2024.  ALISON SAAR Artist Alison Saar, a Los Angeles-based sculptor, mixed-media, and installation artist, is a force in public art. She has produced many monuments including Swing Low, the Harriet Tubman Memorial (2007) in New York City; Embodied (2014) at the Los Angeles County Hall of Justice; and To Sit A While (2022) a monument to Lorraine Hansberry in Chicago. Saar has received multiple awards and honors, and most recently was selected by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the City of Paris to produce Salon, in honor of the 2024 Olympic Games. She has exhibited for decades at galleries and museums, including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her art is represented in the collections of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Museum of Modern Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among numerous others. Saar exhibited her work Fanning the Fire at Socrates in 1988, which is now in the collection of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She has been a Board member of Socrates Sculpture Park since 2018. 2025 Steering Committee Howard Axel Heather Bhandari Sanford Biggers Peter Coffin Anita Contini and Steve Van Anden Lucas Cooper and Jane Benson Veri di Suvero Neil Hamamoto Fitzhugh Karol Anastasia Kidd Charlotte Kidd Lisa Kim Jeffrey Meris Ivana Mestrovic Claire Weisz Hank Willis Thomas Spacetime CC Spacetime is the studio of the artist Mark di Suvero. The buildings were built in the 1920s and the 1930s and were originally used to unload and store bricks that were manufactured up the Hudson River. By the time di Suvero saw the structures in 1980 they were close to being condemned. He began work to repair the buildings and immediately invited other artists to come work in the space and use his tools. Artists such as Ursula von Rydingsvard, Linda Fleming and Meg Webster made work in the space under the auspices of his Athena Foundation. Five years later, di Suvero and Enrico Martignoni applied to New York City to lease the land that became Socrates Sculpture Park. Artists continue to have studio spaces at Spacetime to this day. Learn more about Spacetime CC here: https://www.spacetimecc.com