Saturday, March 23, 4:00-6:00pm
Extraordinary Women: Four Visionary Architects
City Dreamers | Canada | 2018 | 81min
Documentary and discussion with Architecture Critic Christopher Hume
Phyllis Lambert, Blanche Lemco van Ginkel, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander and Denise Scott Brown were pioneers in the field of architecture when few women entered the profession. Yet they succeeded. They worked with the big names in the modernist movement: Mies van Der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn, Robert Venturi. Yet through their practices they have emphasized the importance of heritage, neighbourhoods and green space for a healthy urban environment.
Join us for the documentary City Dreamers, which through interviews and archival materials, explores the experiences and philosophies of these four women. Phyllis Lambert, who was responsible for the construction of the Mies-designed Seagram Building in New York, also founded the Canadian Centre for Architecture and Heritage Montreal. Blanche Lemco van Ginkel is credited, along with her husband, with saving Old Montreal from being destroyed to make way for an expressway and with helping develop the master plan for Expo 67. At U of T, she headed the Faculty of Architecture. Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, for her part, reinvented how we develop urban green spaces and introduced the concept of green roofs in several major cities. And Denise Scott Brown revolutionized the way we think about contemporary architectural and urban heritage, along with her husband Robert Venturi.
Architecture critic Christopher Hume joins us at the Revue to discuss the film and the impact these architects have had on our cities and planning practices. As a columnist for the Toronto Star, he interviewed three of them: Phyllis Lambert, Blanche Lemco van Ginkel, and Cornelia Hahn Oberlander. We look forward to hearing Chris’s views!
Tickets: $15 (including fees) on Eventbrite; $18 at the door.