Lagrange bids the biz adieu

840 N Lake Shore Dr

“Of the type that does upscale condos, can you think of a better architect?”

– Architect Stanley Tigerman, speaking to Crain’s about Lucien Lagrange‘s retirement, which comes on the heels of his firm’s filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Judging from old comments on this site, I’m not sure many of our readers would share Tigerman’s admiration. Still, whether you like his designs or loathe them, Lagrange has been a difficult architect to ignore — look around downtown and you’ll see his firm’s mark everywhere, from his renovation work at Union Station and the Carbide and Carbon Building, to Park Tower and 840 North Lake Shore (above) in Streeterville, to Erie on the Park and Kingsbury on the Park in River North, to the recently completed Elysian and Ten East Delaware in the Gold Coast.

Work (or something that passes for it) is progressing on two more of his designs — the Ritz-Carlton Residences and Lincoln Park 2520 — but the last Lagrange project to really raise our readers hackles, the proposed X/O Condominiums, died when the market crashed.

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