The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) has announced Phyllis Lambert, architect and CCA Founding Director Emeritus, as the winner of the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize 2016 Architecture Awards from The American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York. The $20,000 prize is given to an architect of any nationality who has made a significant contribution to architecture as an art.
Lambert "is the conscience of modern and contemporary architecture, protecting its past and advocating for its future as a vital art form," said jury chairman Elizabeth Diller.
Her role as Director of Planning for the Seagram Building from 1954-1958 was highlighted by juror Robert A. M. Stern as, “one of the great acts of architectural patronage in modern times”, and that, “under Lambert's leadership the CCA has amassed an incomparable library and staggering archive of drawings, and has mounted important public programs that have done much to rescue the profession of architecture from inertia and amnesia.”
"Phyllis Lambert has made an enormous contribution to how we think about architecture and cities. She has raised awareness and standards of research, scholarship, heritage preservation, and design to the highest levels," added Current Chair of the Board of Trustees of the CCA, Bruce Kuwabara.
The Arts and Letters Award in Architecture will be given to four American architects whose work is characterized by a strong personal direction or who explores ideas in architecture through any medium of expression.The recipients who will each receive a $10,000 prize are respectively, Andrew Berman, Andrew Freear, Mimi Hoang & Eric Bunge, and Theodore Prudon.
This year’s winners were chosen from a group of 35 individuals and practices nominated by the members of the Academy. The jurors were: Elizabeth Diller (chairman), Henry Cobb, Peter Eisenman, Kenneth Frampton, Hugh Hardy, Steven Holl, Cesar Pelli, James Polshek, Robert A. M. Stern, and Tod Williams.
The awards will be presented in New York City in May at the Academy’s annual Ceremonial. Work by the winners will be featured in an upcoming exhibition on view in the Academy’s galleries on Audubon Terrace from May 19 to June 12.
News via CCA
