page_title: Lucien Lagrange
section_title: Architecture career
hierarchical_section_title: Lucien Lagrange / Architecture career
caption_attribution_description: The Hotel Elysian is a new addition (completed in 2010) to Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood.
context_page_description: Lucien Lagrange is an architect and a former partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, who founded his own firm, named Lucien Lagrange Architects in 1985. The studio is a representative of New Urbanism and New Classical Architecture.
  Lagrange is a French-born architect who came to Chicago, Illinois after studying at McGill University. He currently lives in a Louis Sullivan designed Lincoln Park community area house. As an architect, he is inspired by Louis Sullivan and Auguste Perret.
  He is currently involved in the construction or renovation of seven notable buildings in Chicago, Illinois: 10 East Delaware, Blackstone Hotel, the Waldorf Astoria Chicago, Lincoln Park 2550, Ritz-Carlton Chicago, 208 South LaSalle and X/O. Lagrange designed the renovation of the Chicago Landmark Carbide & Carbon Building into the Hard Rock Hotel and designed the Park Tower. He has also renovated the Union Station and designed the 29 South LaSalle, The Pinnacle, InterContinental Chicago. In 2008 Lagrange designed Manhattan's ultra luxury 535 West End Avenue, which is one of the most prestigious residential addresses in New York City, as well as the Touraine at 65th and Lexington.
context_section_description: Lagrange has a reputation as Chicago's architect for the wealthy.  In fact, he is considered the go-to guy for classically inspired high-end residential buildings.  As such he is known for understanding luxurious lifestyle and incorporating it into designs so that art collections, vast wardrobes, jewelry safes, chefs, florists, and refrigerated fur storage are accommodated.  As an employer he has a reputation as an oligarchic ruler.
  When he was interviewed in 1997 about his first thirty years in architecture he marvelled at two major transformations.  First he noted that the advent of the personal computer has changed the zipatone process.  Then he noted that the real estate/architecture has also changed because "Projects are financed in a very different way, . . . We don't custom design everything. We use components, which are pre-designed, curtain walls, ceiling tiles. All the systems exist and we just integrate them in the architecture, which also means we can do a set of working drawings a lot faster today."
  With the Lincoln Park 2550 project, Lagrange is currently endeavoring to design the property's 3 acres (12,000 m²) so that every unit to have a view of a French garden inspired by an 18th-century chateau that once housed Madame de Pompadour.
  Lagrange designed the Catalyst, a contemporary-style $100 million high-rise condominium planned at the northeast corner of Washington and Des Plaines in Chicago's Near West Side community area.  Real estate developer Gary Rosenberg said, "Lucien Lagrange, the highly acclaimed award-winning architect for Catalyst, has created a striking geometric 22-story skyscraper, which immediately captures the eye when approaching the Chicago Loop from the  [Kennedy] expressway. The building's design is unique with jutting blocks of glass space creating geometric squares and rectangles which seem to float on the building's façade, along with a strong vertical element which highlights the contemporary sleek style."
  Lagrange designed the Ritz-Carlton Residences on Chicago's Magnificent Mile, a 40-story condominium tower built at 664 North Michigan Avenue.
  In 1996, Lucien Lagrange & Associates designed the building to rise at Rush Street and Chicago Avenue on the site then occupied by the 16-story Park Hyatt. In 2008 Lagrange designed Manhattan's ultra Luxury 535 West End Avenue which is one of the most prestigious residential addresses in New York City.
  In 2010 Lagrange closed his office and filed chapter 11 bankruptcy while going through a divorce. "Mr. Lagrange declines to comment about the firm's finances and says the Chapter 11 filing was merely a pragmatic business decision he made after deciding it was time to retire."
  Mr. Lagrange is currently designing under the Lucien Lagrange Studio brand.
caption: Waldorf Astoria Chicago, completed in 2010
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