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Meet the designers who are remaking one of Chicago’s landmark interiors

Unless you’re a design fanatic or a New Yorker, you probably won’t recognize the pair pictured above. Soon enough, we predict, Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch will be names Chicagoans know and love. Founders of the influential New York design firm Roman and Williams, the husband and wife have been winning praise from architecture critics since they started their design firm in 2002. The news for Chicago is that they’ve been hired to convert the Chicago Athletic Association (12 S. Michigan Ave.) into a 240-room hotel; set to open in late 2014, the yet-to-be-named hotel is being developed by John Pritzker and AJ Capital.