Dec. 15--Dirk Lohan, for decades a major figure in Chicago architecture, will close his firm and take a leadership role at Wight Co., a major design and construction firm with offices in Chicago and west suburban Darien, leaders of the companies said Tuesday.
The 77-year-old Lohan, grandson of master modernist Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, is best known for architectural projects like the McDonald's Corp. headquarters in Oak Brook as well as master plans for the Illinois Institute of Technology and the renovation of Soldier Field.
Lohan and his partner, Floyd Anderson, will head a list of 10 people from their eponymous firm who will be hired by Wight Co. next month. Lohan will lead a new section of the firm called the Lohan Studio. He brings a global reputation as well as experience in commercial, hotel, government and institutional buildings. Both he and Anderson will be principals at Wight Co.
The change will create "a greatly expanded portfolio ... and an international reach that we haven't had before," said Mark Wight, Wight Co.'s CEO. "I see opportunities and possibilities that I've never had," Lohan added.
Wight Co. features a one-stop shopping approach, known as "design-build," that provides architecture, engineering and construction services to clients. In Chicago, its projects include the new public library in Chinatown.
Wight described the move as a "combination." Lohan said: "We are gradually discontinuing Lohan Anderson and phasing it out." Wight Co. currently has more than 175 employees. Until recently, Lohan said, Lohan Anderson had "about 20 people" and gradually dropped to 10 employees in anticipation of the just-announced move.
Lohan Anderson's employees will move from its current quarters at the Equitable Building, 401 N. Michigan Ave., to Wight Co.'s Chicago outpost, a former railroad powerhouse at 211 N. Clinton St.
Previously, Lohan headed firms known as Fujikawa, Conterato, Lohan Associates; Lohan Associates; and Lohan Caprile Goettsch Architects. Among projects completed by those firms are additions to the Shedd Aquarium and Adler Planetarium, and a dining pavilion at the Ravinia Festival. Lohan broke from Lohan Caprile Goettsch in 2004 and began Lohan Anderson.
The disappearance of the Lohan name from a firm's marquee represents the latest changing of the guard in Chicago architecture. In 2000, Harry Weese Associates, the venerable Chicago architecture firm that designed the Washington, D.C., subway system, closed its doors and its partners joined the Chicago office of the global firm Gensler.
bkamin@tribpub.com
