Seagram Building savior Phyllis Lambert tops spring architecture lectures

Phyllis Lambert

Architect Phyllis Lambert, whose fierce determination led to one of New York City’s landmark buildings, will cap a set of lectures sponsored by the Rice School of Architecture (RSA), including four presented in collaboration with the Rice Design Alliance (RDA), this spring.

Lambert, a scion of the Seagram liquor family, took control of the design and construction of the 1959 Seagram Building, a story she recounted in a 2013 book, “Building Seagram.”

The devotee of Mies van der Rohe, whom she hired to design the building, will deliver the RSA Llewelyn-Davies Sahni Innovative Practices Lecture, titled “Mies Constructs,” at Anderson Hall’s Farish Gallery April 14 at 5:30 p.m. Lambert is founding director emeritus of the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

“Phyllis Lambert has been one of architecture’s most important patrons for the past 50 years, first through her efforts for the Seagram Building and subsequently as a key voice for preservation in Montreal and as the founder of the Canadian Centre for Architecture. It’s very exciting to have her coming here,” said RSA Dean Sarah Whiting, the William Ward Watkin Professor of Architecture.

Lambert is one of eight high-profile speakers coming to Rice University and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) this spring.

The RSA/RDA Spring Lecture Series, titled “On Immediacy,” will bring four speakers from international firms to the MFAH to discuss their genre-busting designs. The series, curated by Rice School of Architecture Assistant Professor Jesús Vassallo, will highlight work that collapses distinctions between art and architecture, representation and construction, and drawing and building.

“I think that these firms’ practices are captivating because they are experimental without renouncing building things in the real world, producing work that is intellectually stimulating as well as sensually powerful,” Vassallo said. “I also appreciate the ways in which they exploit the contradictions and gaps in contemporary architectural idiosyncrasy in a productive way.”

The four RSA/RDA lectures will begin at 7 p.m. at the MFAH’s Brown Auditorium in the Caroline Wiess Law Building:

Jan. 22: Jan de Vylder, co-founder of De Vylder Vinck Taillieu, Gent, Belgium.

Jan. 29: José Selgas, co-founder of selgascano, Madrid.

Feb. 5: Philipp Schaerer, architect, Zurich.

Feb. 19: Carlos Bedoya Ikeda, principal, Productora, Mexico City.

Series tickets are $20 for RDA and MFAH members, $15 for senior citizens 65 and older, $10 for students and $35 for all others. Rice students with university IDs may attend for free. If available, single tickets will be sold 30 minutes prior to the lecture and are $7 for RDA and MFAH members, senior citizens 65 and students, and $15 for others. Each event begins with a reception at 6 p.m.

The RSA Lecture Series, titled “Construct,” will be held at Anderson Hall’s Farish Gallery. All lectures begin at 5:30 p.m. and are free and open to the public.

“‘Construct’ ties these four speakers together both as a verb and as a noun: All four have constructed new ways of understanding, promoting and practicing architecture,” Whiting said.

Feb. 27: Stanislaus von Moos, the Vincent Scully Visiting Professor at the Yale School of Architecture, will discuss “Brutalisms in History.”

March 13: Andrew Zago, a principal at Zago Architecture and member of the design faculty at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and a clinical professor, University of Illinois at Chicago, will deliver a talk titled “Of Marginal Interest.”

March 27: Nader Tehrani, a principal at NADAAA and head of the MIT School of Architecture, will address “Catalytic Structures: Transformed Types.”

The Betty R. and George F. Pierce Jr., FAIA, Fund supports the free RSA lectures.