Quote:
Originally Posted by miketoronto
Is that not the skyscraper that went up and then everyone hated it and it made Paris ban skyscrapers, and that is why La Defense happened?
Thats what I heard. They felt this tower ruined Paris' beauty, so they banned high-rises.
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Yes and no.
La Défense was planned (and started) even before the Tour Montparnasse was under construction.
So, the decision to create a business center with high-rises oustide Paris has nothing to do with the rejection of the Tour Montparnasse.
However, in 1974 (after the death of George Pompidou, the president who favored modernity), skyscrapers were, indeed banned from the city center, and that decision, certainly benefited to La Défense.
I'm not sure that the Tour Montparnasse was the main reason for the ban. Many other high-rises were built around 1970 (13e arrondissement, Jussieu, Front de Seine...) and they were said to be wildly unpopular (I have my doubts about the reality of that assertion). I think that the mediocrity of
those developments resulted in the ban.