The Daoust Lestage Lizotte Stecker team had the honour of designing the cake celebrating Phyllis Lambert’s 95th birthday. Made by Alex Platel from Lescurier, the cake was served in the Canadian Centre for Architecture’s bookstore.
“ Phyllis how to honour you on your 95th birthday ?
One perspective was privileged, the materiality that characterized several of your greatest achievements.
First, let’s talk about the organizing grid for your cake: emulating the urban fabric of Montreal where you continue your fight for architectural quality, it also refers to the façade of the Seagram Building, the two are intertwined.
Today, it bears 95 milestones and several exceptional moments.
Artist and sculptor from an early age, in your twenties, you shaped plaster to create beautiful sculptures, showcasing your interest and your great talent for art and drawing.
It was at the age of 27, as a young rebel artist, that you influenced the course of 20th century architecture by convincing your father to work with Mies van der Rohe to create a building expressing the best of society at the time, a landmark of steel, glass, and bronze.
As an activist architect at 48, with Héritage Montréal, you became an ardent defender of Montreal’s buildings and their ornamentation, preserving the city’s unique and distinctive personality.
At the age of 52, you founded the Canadian Centre for Architecture because, as you rightly point out, architecture must be of public interest.
You have always been interested in grey stone, you have photographed it, you have preserved it, you have used it to build a landmark institution, and now at 95, you will help us appreciate it in your forthcoming books.
The framework of your life, Phyllis, has had an impact on all of us.
Artist, sculptor, architect, visionary, avant-gardist, free spirit, strategist, philanthropist, Phyllis the qualifiers for you are innumerable, even those about your ebullient character.
We hope to stand with you again and again in the years to come to support your unwavering fight for art, architecture and the development of our cities.
Happy birthday and thank you for everything Phyllis ”
