Lecture date: 2014-02-26
Building Seagram (Yale University Press, 2013) tells the biography not just of this important building, but of the culture of post-war design, including the significant part corporate patronage played in the era’s real estate development, and of the project’s substantial role in shaping landmark legislation and zoning laws in New York City.
Phyllis Lambert provides an unprecedented personal history of her experience managing the project, as well as of the working relationship between Mies van der Rohe and Phillip Johnson, offering a detailed scholarly assessment of the design and construction process and the building’s cultural legacy and life in the city over a half-century.
Phyllis Lambert is an architect, preservationist, lecturer, historian, scholar, curator, patron, citizen activist and critic of architecture and urbanism. She is Founding Director Emeritus of the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal. An honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Lambert is recognised internationally for her contribution in advancing contemporary architecture, together with her concern for the social issues of architecture and the role of architecture in the public realm.
