Phyllis Lambert

The Center for Canadian Architecture (CCA) presents “Phyllis Lambert: 75 Years At Work”, an exhibition retracing the exceptional career of its Founding Director Emeritus.

Richard Nickel, exterior of Saidye Bronfman Centre at Night, 1968. Phyllis Lambert, Architect. Gelatin silver print, Phyllis Lambert fonds, CCA © Richard Nickel. Courtesy of the Richard Nickel Committee, Chicago, Illinois
  • 19 January 2017
  • Montreal

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) presents Phyllis Lambert: 75 Years At Work highlighting her deep commitment towards the city and the built environment and to intellectual research. The CCA’s exhibition halls tell the story of her ideas and her architectural, curatorial and editorial work, with material drawn from the CCA Collection, its institutional archives, and the Phyllis Lambert fonds.

Pier Associates. Composite photograph of Phyllis Lambert and David Fix in their studio, 403-409 East Illinois St. Chicago, USA, c. 1970, Reproduction. Phyllis Lambert fonds, CCA © Pier Associates
Top: Richard Nickel, exterior of Saidye Bronfman Centre at Night, 1968. Phyllis Lambert, Architect. Gelatin silver print, Phyllis Lambert fonds, CCA © Richard Nickel. Courtesy of the Richard Nickel Committee, Chicago, Illinois. Above: Pier Associates. Composite photograph of Phyllis Lambert and David Fix in their studio, 403-409 East Illinois St. Chicago, USA, c. 1970, Reproduction. Phyllis Lambert fonds, CCA © Pier Associates

Lambert herself curates the exhibition, and the materials she has chosen give a chronological account of the great chapters and discoveries of her life: her early work, the Seagram building, her architectural education and first steps in that profession, the Saidye Bronfman Centre project, photography missions, and conservation and restoration projects, both in Montreal and abroad, leading to the creation of the CCA. The selected archival material will reveal, through a series of case studies in chronological order, the constant radicalism of her life.

Ezra Stoller. Seagrams Building, Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, architects; Kahn and Jacobs, associate architects; Phyllis Lambert, Director of Planning. View from northwest in the afternoon, 375 Park Avenue, New York, 1958. Gelatin silver print,CCA © Ezra Stoller / Esto

Known worldwide as an architect, author, researcher, lecturer, curator, architecture critic, patron of heritage, engaged citizen, activist, and founder of the CCA, Phyllis Lambert is constant in her insistence that “You must build things that express the best qualities of the society in which you live.”

Phyllis Lambert and Gene Summers, Principals, Ridgeway Ltd., Architects and Developers. Photographer unknown, c. 1976. Gelatin silver print. Phyllis Lambert fonds, CCA
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