Phyllis Lambert | |
---|---|
Born |
Phyllis Barbara Bronfman January 24, 1927 Montreal, Quebec |
Nationality | Canadian |
Parent(s) |
Samuel Bronfman (father) Saidye Rosner Bronfman (mother) |
Relatives |
Edgar Bronfman, Sr. (brother) Charles Bronfman (brother) |
Awards |
Order of Canada National Order of Quebec Golden Lion, Venice Biennale of Architecture |
Phyllis Barbara Lambert, CC GOQ FRAIC FRSC RCA (née Bronfman; born January 24, 1927) is a Canadian architect, philanthropist, and member of the Bronfman family.
Born in Montreal, Quebec, she studied at The Study, a premier independent school for girls, and was educated at Vassar College (BA in 1948).
On 17 May 1949, in Montreal, she married Jean Lambert, a French-German economic consultant and the only son of Adolphe Lambert of Elmhurst, Queens, New York. The couple divorced in 1954.
In 1951 Lambert's father Samuel Bronfman established Cemp Investments, a holding company for his four children, in which Phyllis was given a 22% ownership stake. It controlled the family’s distilling empire, The Seagram Company Ltd., which over time controlled billions of dollars in liquor, real estate, oil and gas, and chemical companies. She served on the board of directors of Cemp's subsidiary, Cadillac Fairview.
Lambert moved to New York City in 1954 to learn more about architecture, and graduated from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1963. In the 1960s, she designed the Saidye Bronfman Centre in Montreal, named after her mother. As Director of Planning for the Seagram Building, she was influential in bringing Ludwig Mies van der Rohe onto the project, also recommending him for the Toronto-Dominion Centre design, a project on which she served as a consultant.;