Phyllis Lambert has witnessed an entire epoch of architecture. At 92 years old, the founder of the Canadian Centre of Architecture (CCA) lived through the rise of modernism, the era of highway building and urban renewal, and the backlash that led to a resurgence of high-density, neighborhood-focused development.
And she helped lead the way. Born in Montreal to the Bronfman family, which built the Seagram’s liquor empire, Lambert was a talented artist from an early age. After graduating from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, she pursued her artistic career in Paris. But when her family began planning a New York headquarters for the Seagram Co., she was so outraged by the perfunctory design they chose, she moved back across the Atlantic to take charge of the development project.
Lambert hired Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a German-born architect whose minimalist glass-and-steel houses had caught her attention. Under her influence, the Bronfmans gave Mies an unlimited budget, and the resulting tower—a sleek, black-hued rebuke to the fusty architecture of Park Avenue, fronted by a rare bit of public open space—became one of the world’s most influential buildings after it was completed in 1958.
That experience persuaded Lambert to study architecture and move back to Montreal. There, she designed an arts center and led the city’s first heritage conservation movement in response to urban renewal projects that were knocking down large swaths of the city’s historic neighborhoods. In 1979, she founded the CCA, a museum and research institution, to promote public awareness of architecture.
Lambert’s efforts led her to be recognized with a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2014 Venice Biennale, whose chairman Paola Baratta declared, “Architects make architecture; Phyllis Lambert made architects.”
Penta sat down with Lambert to discuss what she thinks of current architecture and how property developers can create better cities.
PENTA : What are some of the most interesting trends in architecture today?
Phyllis Lambert: The most important things are the cities and understanding that cities are not just made up of developers’ high-rise buildings, but there is a human quality that is becoming more and more evident to people. Our future is not in single buildings but in whole neighborhoods.
I think there is a huge movement forward on the ground. There is a sense of the democratization of the decision-making of things. And also a lack of interest in the kind of grand gesture.
You mean architects are less interested in making grand gestures?
They’re more interested in how you inhabit a place.
Back when your family was building the Seagram headquarters in New York, what led you to push for Mies van der Rohe to design it?
I was an artist as a child, I exhibited my work in juried shows from the age of 11 on. I studied art history at college. When I was a child I walked around and saw all of the greystone buildings [in Montreal] and I had a sense of the importance of the medium you live in—because it is a medium. It cultivates us. If you’re going to build, you have a responsibility to make things better—to make places that are wonderful for the people who work there, for the people who pass by there, for the people in the neighborhood.
We’ve reached a point where those modernist buildings are now considered heritage. Is there enough understanding of their value—and enough being done to protect them?
In Montreal, there’s the [Mies van der Rohe-designed gas station] on Île des Soeurs. The company that owned it didn’t want it as a gas station anymore, but everyone said, ‘No, no, we want to keep it.’ So they reformed it as a place for young people to meet and get together and hang out. That’s wonderful and it was done very well.
What I want people to realize is that when they build a new building, that’s [eventually] going to be heritage—and if it’s not, it ruins the city.
The Seagram Building on Park Avenue, New York City, circa 1960. George Heyer/Three Lions/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Do you think architecture is prepared to deal with the climate crisis?
On a level of making a building, there’s something called LEED [to create energy-efficient buildings], but that’s a technical thing. It’s a good thing, but it’s just a tiny, tiny thing that should be done anyway. It takes a whole broader view of a building in the city—of the means of transportation, of green space, of all of us—and I don’t think that has been addressed yet.
One thing I’ve noticed here in Montreal is that everytime there has been a project in which there has been public hearings and public involvement, it’s always been good—and otherwise not. Otherwise you get people who are out to make money—make as much money as you can and damn the others. Public hearings are monstrously, enormously important. People have all sorts of opinions but there is usually very much a consensus.
How do you convince a developer to adopt a more sensitive approach?
We [at the CCA] have something called a ‘consulting table’ made up of developers, of people who own buildings, of people who are architects and [involved in] museums, and we work with developers. We’ve improved a great deal of what they’re doing by discussing it with them. Not every developer is [open to change] but most of them would be with talks and discussions.
Changing track a bit, one important issue in architecture is gender inequality—there are still very few women in leadership roles in the world’s top architecture firms. Why do you think that is?
When I went to architecture school in the ’60s, there were maybe two other women in the school. Hardly any. It takes awhile for people who have been excluded from things to gain confidence. But now I think there’s impressive work being done and a lot of the big architecture schools have women at their head. I think we’re going through a normal evolution, a good evolution.
It has now been 40 years since you founded the Canadian Centre for Architecture. Why did you feel there was a need for this kind of institution?
I was working on the Seagram Building and I went to school in Chicago, which has an amazing amount of architecture, high-rises like Mies’ but also great neighborhoods, Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, but I also saw a lot of demolitions. You’d go to cities and see areas with just one lone Victorian building sticking out. I wanted to keep Canada and Montreal from having this kind of destruction.
I loved drawings and I had started collecting photographs when I was in New York. I started to photograph Montreal because I wanted to have a sense of how a city grew. At the time I put up my 4×5 chamber camera and aimed it at a building and people would ask, ‘Why are taking a photo of that building? It’s going to come down.’ People didn’t know anything about architecture. So I thought we should have a place that made a case that architecture as a public concern. You want to open people’s eyes, to make them think about it. It affects everyone’s lives.
How has the level of awareness of architecture changed since then?
It’s everywhere. When I formed the CCA, at the same time there were a number of architectural centres being formed all over the world. I wasn’t alone.
