Lucien Lagrange, the Chicago-based architect whose designs are imprinted on a slew of high-profile buildings on the Near North Side, has announced his retirement following his firm’s recent filing for bankruptcy.

Lucien Lagrange Architects petitioned for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 14. The firm — whose design portfolio includes the 40-story Ritz-Carlton Residences, 625 N. Michigan, 65 E. Goethe and restoration work on the Hard Rock Hotel, 230 N. Michigan — listed between $1 million and $10 million in both assets and debts.

Lagrange, 69, said in news reports that he will retire from the field of architecture in part because the declining health of the real estate development market made the endeavor of recovering from bankruptcy an unattractive prospect.

He told the Sun-Times that the filing was sourced to a $1 million debt for an unfinished project in Saudi Arabia. Lagrange currently has a number of projects under construction, including the 39-story Lincoln Park 2520. Other buildings, like the shimmering X/O twin towers in the South Loop, never made it off the ground.

Lagrange did not return calls for this story.

The French-born architect’s work can be found downtown in the post-modern Ten East Delaware, the contemporary Catalyst building on the Near West Side and the Beaux Arts–inspired Elysian Hotel.

Ted Guarnero, a Gold Coast realtor with Baird & Warner, said that buyers need no introduction to Lagrange’s work.

“If you say the name, the upscale clientele automatically know you’re starting at seven hundred to a million dollars,” per unit Guarnero said. “You’re buying in one of the best buildings around.”

Other buildings with Lagrange’s stamp include the Second Empire-style 840 Lake Shore Drive and the Park Tower at 800 N. Michigan. The architect is also regarded for his work on a number of restoration projects.

A high school dropout who studied architecture at McGill University in Montreal, Lagrange got his start in the late sixties as an intern with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP, the powerhouse Chicago architectural firm known for its design work on the Sears Tower. Lagrange eventually made partner at the company and opened his own firm in 1985.

Over the next twenty-five years, Lagrange built his reputation as a designer of upscale buildings, often incorporating high-modernist style in his plans for developments such as Erie on the Park and Kingsbury on the Park.

In the current development climate, architects like Lagrange are an easy target, said Lynn Osmond, the chief executive officer of the Chicago Architecture Foundation.

“Architects are often the first ones in the line of fire in a recession,” she said. “Right now money is so tight, there’s just not a lot of development going on.”

Lagrange told the Sun-Times that business at his firm has declined 75 percent since 2008.

Osmond said that Lagrange’s design for the Park Hyatt Hotel and Elysian hotel changed the look of city.

“He will be missed in the landscape,” she said.

Lagrange was well known among Chicago’s builders. David Carlins, president of the Magellan Development Group, said that while his firm never worked with Lagrange, his style was always well regarded.

“We like what he did,” he said.

Without knowing the specifics of Lagrange’s financial situation, Carlins said that there is still hope for resourceful architects in Chicago.

“It’s tough out there to generate new business and new clients, but you’ve got to get creative,” he said.

Realtor Ted Guarnero said that Lagrange will be remembered as an architect who had a grasp on the niche market of upper-class buyers in the city.

“Kudos for him for capturing that small market and doing very well at each building,” he said.