By Phyllis Lambert

Phyllis Lambert: Observation Is a Constant That Underlies All Approaches is a tiny clothbound compendium of the overlooked and the incidental in architecture and daily life, from the legendary champion of modernist architecture. Phyllis Lambert (b. 1927) is an architect, author, conservation activist and critic of architecture and urbanism, and the Founding Director Emeritus of the CCA in Montreal, which she established in 1979. “My own use of the camera began in 1954 as I started to think about what a new building in New York—the Seagram building—could be,” she writes. This curiosity is a constant throughout Lambert’s work; she has devoted her career to studying and engaging with the changing conditions of urban landscapes. In this collection of personal photographs taken over several decades during her daily routines, her travels or at work, observation turns into a quest to understand and reveal what might otherwise remain overlooked.