Lucien DELEAN

LUCIEN DELEAN It was as if he finally felt his job here was done. The day after clearing out his office, 92-year-old architect Lucien Delean went to a hospital in North Bay and was diagnosed with terminal illness. He died less than a month later, on May 11, 2023, family at his side. With his passing, Northern Ontario has lost one of its leading lights. Over the course of a career of almost 70 years, Lucien and the architectural firm he co-founded in North Bay with the late Norm Critchley created and reimagined thousands of buildings over a vast territory that extended as far west as Rainy River, south to Huntsville, north to Moosonee and east to the Quebec border. They included 400 elementary and secondary schools, almost 200 hospitals (among them the North Bay Regional Health Centre) and dozens of seniors' residences. Pick a town - any town - on a map of the north, and there's a good chance it has one or more of their buildings. Born in Iroquois Falls and raised there and in Kirkland Lake, Lucien was the fourth of eight children of Georgette and Albert Delean. He first got interested in design as a teenager, doing mechanical drawings for the machine shop in Kirkland Lake that his father co-owned. He studied at the University of Toronto School of Architecture, earning the Gold Medal as top student of a graduating class that included architecture icon Raymond Moriyama, and returned to the north in 1954 to work initially for a firm in Sudbury, then in North Bay. He and Critchley, an acquaintance who'd played alongside him in his father Albert's chamber orchestra in Kirkland Lake, teamed up to launch their own firm in 1955, after each received a $5 bill as Christmas bonus from their then-employer. "We had no money or clients, but we felt we could do at least as well on our own as we had working for someone else," he said. "It worked out better than I ever imagined. I never worked for anyone else again." From an office of two, with drafting tables made of old doors and a front desk set on concrete blocks, it gradually grew into one of Northern Ontario's most successful and enduring firms. The torch was passed to younger partners when Norm Critchley retired in 2007, but Lucien continued to work full-time until just weeks before his death. "I just always enjoyed the creative experience, starting with nothing and ending up with something that will last 50 years, hopefully, and provide functional and aesthetic qualities people will like." A true Renaissance man, he was fluently bilingual, painted and sketched, played the cello and was proficient at sports, including golf and tennis. He loved fine art, jazz and classical music, and the Montreal Canadiens. Nothing made him prouder than his Franco-Ontarian heritage and the families he was born into and created. Despite a demanding professional schedule that had him "working almost every night for 30-40 years," he also was active in the community, taking a leading role with organizations such as the North Bay Arts Centre, Kiwanis Music Festival and North Bay YMCA, where he was a volunteer French teacher in the 1970s and still played squash well into his 80s. He was a fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, sat on the Ontario Arts Council and Ontario Economic Council, and received the University of Toronto's Arbor Award for service to that institution. Predeceased by siblings Therese, Micheline, Rollande, George and Denise, he is survived by wife Norma Clumpus Delean, his five children with Anita Kivinen, Paul, Peter (Pam), Matthew (Marina), Adam (Christiane) and Susan (Larry), sister Suzanne and brother Raymond, Norma's children Joey, Karen and Jenny, 11 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Visitation will be Friday, May 26th from 2-4 and 6-8 p.m. and Saturday, May 27th from 10 a.m. to 12 at Hillside Funeral Services, 362 Airport Road, North Bay, followed by a funeral service for family. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the North Bay Food Bank - one of countless northern buildings he modernized - or Nipissing Serenity Hospice, which provided such compassionate final care. Online condolences can be made at www.hillsidefuneral.ca