A young Phyllis Lambert sits at the centre of a room filled from wall to wall with older men. Lambert has forcefully convinced her father to choose Ludwig Mies van der Rohe as architect for the Seagram Building. She gazes directly at the camera?professional, poised, and in control.
This remarkable still from City Dreamers captures the intense drive that characterizes four of the most decorated women in architecture and landscape architecture in North America: Phyllis Lambert, Denise Scott Brown, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, and Blanche Lemco van Ginkel.
Phyllis Lambert trained as an architect and played a pivotal role in securing Mies van der Rohe?s first commission in North America. Photo by Ron Milewski 1971, courtesy CCA – Fonds Phyllis Lambert The film is an exploration of the nature of cities through these women?s eyes. It unfolds as a series of conversations with them, punctuated by rich visual meditations on the life of a city and imagery from their homes in Montreal, Vancouver, Philadelphia and Toronto. The filmmaker Joseph Hillel lets them tell their own stories, supporting their narration with architectural drawings and models. Archival footage stitches together time periods; stills, interviews, and film clips give depth to their long careers and lives.
Lambert, founder of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, recalls breaking free of a stifling Montreal childhood in which ?tout était pour les garçons??everything was for the boys. In contrast, Scott Brown as...