Phyllis Lambert
Steps down as chairperson of the Canadian Centre for Architecture.
Joan of Architecture is stepping down as chairwoman of the Canadian Centre for Architecture.
Phyllis Lambert, 86, announced Wednesday she is retiring as chair of the board of trustees of the museum and research centre she founded in 1979.
Toronto architect Bruce Kuwabara, designer of Concordia University’s Quartier Concordia and the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, will step into Lambert’s shoes.
A tireless defender of Montreal’s built heritage, Lambert has taken an active role in every major urban planning debate in the city in the past four decades, from redeveloping the Old Port to protecting Mount Royal.
But no project has been closer to her heart than the CCA, one of the world’s foremost research facilities on architecture, with more than 60,000 photographs, 100,000 prints and drawings and 215,000 volumes.
“She sponsored it, she founded it and she has always been very much present there,” said Martin Bressani, a professor of architecture at McGill University.
Opened to the public in 1989, the CCA incorporates the historic Shaughnessy House on René-Lévesque Blvd., which Lambert bought in 1974 to save it from the wrecker’s ball. A notorious perfectionist, Lambert cut no corners building the centre, designed by architect Peter Rose and estimated in 1989 to have cost between $40 million and $45 million.
Exhibitions have explored such themes as the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Montreal in the 1960s, the American lawn and the design of Disney theme parks.
Lambert retired as CCA director in 1999.
At Wednesday’s news conference, she acknowledged she felt a “mixture of emotions” over passing the torch.
With her trademark cropped salt-and-pepper hair and a stylish grey blouse and black sweater, Lambert was reflective when asked how she felt about stepping down.
“I guess emotion hits you in the stomach, doesn’t it, in the chest?” she said.
“I think it’s absolutely the right thing to do,” she said, adding she plans to stay on the board and continue to play an active role at the CCA.
Yet it was a difficult moment, she admitted.
“This is so much of my life, to have led it for 35 years.”
Kuwabara, 64, said the CCA intends to reach out to a younger audience while maintaining the standard for excellence set under Lambert’s leadership.
Named an Officer of the Order of Canada last year for his contribution to architecture, Kuwabara lives in Toronto but will travel to Montreal for board meetings.
He paid tribute to Lambert’s multiple roles as heritage advocate, urban visionary, architectural historian and CCA founder.
“It’s interesting when you have people like Phyllis doing so much, you feel like you’re not doing anything yourself,” he said.
Lambert recently published a book recounting how she hired modernist architect Mies van der Rohe in 1954 to design the iconic Seagram’s building in New York for her father, liquor magnate Sam Bronfman.
“There’s total passion in everything she does,” Kuwabara said.