“I wonder, does Lucien keep one drawer of designs marked ‘Bloomingdale’s,’ and another marked, ‘Wal-Mart’?”
– Yo regular Jeff, from a recent comment regarding Lucien Lagrange‘s designs.
Few architects seem to elicit as many mixed reactions among the Yo audience as Lucien Lagrange. Maybe that’s because his firm is responsible for such a mixed bag of buildings. On the one hand, Lagrange’s firm has been responsible for some fairly modern-looking high-rises, like Smithfield Properties‘ Erie on the Park and Kingsbury on the Park (right down the street from the Yo office in River North). On the other hand, most of his towers on the Magnificent Mile, the Gold Coast, and the northeastern reaches of River North follow what he calls an “eclectic architectural style of the Second French Empire,”.
By our count, six active high-rise projects boast Lagrange designs. Perhaps by coincidence, the four that have seen the most progress over the past year all fall into the latter of Lagrange’s two styles, a sort of faux-traditional aesthetic marked with lots of limestone and mansard roofs. Two are going up on North State Street between Walton Street and Delaware Place, another is under construction on Michigan Avenue, and one more is planned for Lincoln Park. The two that boast his more modern designs – one in the South Loop and another on the Near West Side – have moved at a much slower pace and may not see the start of construction for quite some time?
Which projects are they? Find out with the help of NewHomeNotebook.com‘s newest feature, the user-generated list. Click the link below to see these six Lagrange-affiliated developments.
– Rate and review Lucien Lagrange-designed high-rises at NewHomeNotebook.com.
The two smithfield projects were designed by mike karlowvitz, a very talented designer who spent many years at SOM, and has recently rejoined the firm. He also designed a couple of beautiful office buildings in London. Of course adrian smith gets the credit for the SOM projects and lucien gets the credit for the smithfield projects.
I think you could extend the data points back even a few more years on Lucien’s projects to see that his “eclectic architectural style of the Second French Empire,” have been quite successful in areas of quality, ability to attract higher price point, and integration with surrounding neighborhood, there is no argument. As well, it seems to me that the projects where he is embroiled in ‘conservation and neighborhood context controversy’, struggle.
I would bet you a case of beer that if he had designed and proposed the Elysian in the South Loop, it would be already sold and under construction and would have been a transformative project in the South Loop in regard to raising the bar on grandeur. (which coincidently was the original type designs proposed for Central Station’s block face design on Roosevelt)
There seems to be to much focus on originality and uniqueness of new modern designs vs. quality long term designs that last and people want to live in versus soley invest in. If the modern designs are done with quality material (like some of those in Lakeshore East or Near North) fine, bring it on. The problem is that you have those that try to take advantage of the ‘modern architecture build anything euphoria’ by trying to build knock off modern Walmart designs.
I agree that the second-empire thing is a bit sophomoric. Why can’t we expect buidings that fit gracefully into more traditional neighborhoods without having to look like Jed Clampett’s house?
By using more traditional materials and fenestration one can achieve a reasonable balance. By the way, the other building pictured looks like the memory card I put in my computer last night.