PARIS | Tour Phare | 971 FT / 296 M | 71 FLOORS

[Metropolitan]

La Défense business district will get a second supertall skyscraper by 2012. The winner of the contest is the American architect Thom Mayne (Morphosis).


Updated model (December 13th, 2010)





Updated images (August 23rd, 2010)













Cladding Test :

[starvinggryphon]

I think it only looks good from a few angles and I'm not quite sure about the mess on top.

[dropdeaded209]

does that escalator sticking out of the bottom remind anyone else of that klingon-looking tower destined for kentucky? color me unimpressed.

[CoolCzech]

Originally Posted by starvinggryphon

I think it only looks good from a few angles and I'm not quite sure about the mess on top.

The design totally leaves me cold. If this had been chosen for the WTC site in NYC, there would have been outrage. As far as the top, well, I suppose it is imaginative, but so was this (the old GE Building in New York):





I suspect the architect is referrencing this building with his new design, but he's SO far out of his league...

[Altauria]

Am I the only one who thinks it looks like a human nose sneezing (impossibly) from the top?

[Biff]

I have got to say that i'm not the biggest fan of this new organic looking design trend happening right now. I don't mind it so much for lower wider buildings but for skyscrapers it kind of bugs me. I am tired of twisting towers too. Sorry to damper the mood of another 1,000 ft building but...blaaah

[LT4f]

Originally Posted by Biff

I have got to say that i'm not the biggest fan of this new organic looking design trend happening right now. I don't mind it so much for lower wider buildings but for skyscrapers it kind of bugs me. I am tired of twisting towers too. Sorry to damper the mood of another 1,000 ft building but...blaaah

Exactly!
For some reason most people on SSC love this building, I can't understand why, that's why I have to come here where people have better taste.
I am so sick and tired of the organic towers, and all those curves, it's infuriating.
It does wonders for lowrises, but for a wannabe supertall, it looks like this, a pile of poo.
The base is fucked up, it's way too wide where it shouldn't be, and the top is a big piece of crap.
Although from what I've seen on some other renders, I believe they should move the tower 180 degrees, because it is much slimmer from the back.

But again, the top is annoying, I can't stand any more of those wind turbines, I like green ecotowers, but there are certain limits. In this case, for a supertall, you can't leave the top open to winds like this with a bad hairdo.
Like I said on SSC, this looks like Trump, trying to cover his head with a mess of hair... instead they should have increased the height by a good 30 meters, made the tower the tallest in France, above the friggin Eiffel fucking tower, and closed it all up with a shiny glass dome, which would make the tower look like some fat bastard sitting on a couch, with his shiny bald head, weird and proud.

I think they should cancel this because it will definitely hurt LD's skyline.
This was the one shot to build something tall and huge and beautiful, instead they come up with this piece of poo, that isn't even tall, if they wanted a real signal, it should rise up above everything else, not be the ugliest thing since Genex

[toddguy]

Originally Posted by LT4f

Exactly!
For some reason most people on SSC love this building, I can't understand why, that's why I have to come here where people have better taste.
I am so sick and tired of the organic towers, and all those curves, it's infuriating.
It does wonders for lowrises, but for a wannabe supertall, it looks like this, a pile of poo.
The base is fucked up, it's way too wide where it shouldn't be, and the top is a big piece of crap.
Although from what I've seen on some other renders, I believe they should move the tower 180 degrees, because it is much slimmer from the back.

But again, the top is annoying, I can't stand any more of those wind turbines, I like green ecotowers, but there are certain limits. In this case, for a supertall, you can't leave the top open to winds like this with a bad hairdo.
Like I said on SSC, this looks like Trump, trying to cover his head with a mess of hair... instead they should have increased the height by a good 30 meters, made the tower the tallest in France, above the friggin Eiffel fucking tower, and closed it all up with a shiny glass dome, which would make the tower look like some fat bastard sitting on a couch, with his shiny bald head, weird and proud.

I think they should cancel this because it will definitely hurt LD's skyline.
This was the one shot to build something tall and huge and beautiful, instead they come up with this piece of poo, that isn't even tall, if they wanted a real signal, it should rise up above everything else, not be the ugliest thing since Genex

LMAO!! I really should not be on here when I have been drinking. lol. Yeah I saw that they seemed to love it at SSC as well(when they were not caught up in the Brits vs The French thing).

'Like I said on SSC, this looks like Trump, trying to cover his head with a mess of hair... instead they should have increased the height by a good 30 meters, made the tower the tallest in France, above the friggin Eiffel fucking tower, and closed it all up with a shiny glass dome, which would make the tower look like some fat bastard sitting on a couch, with his shiny bald head, weird and proud.."

hahahaha!!!!

[Starsky]

Originally Posted by Biff

I have got to say that i'm not the biggest fan of this new organic looking design trend happening right now. I don't mind it so much for lower wider buildings but for skyscrapers it kind of bugs me. I am tired of twisting towers too. Sorry to damper the mood of another 1,000 ft building but...blaaah

You can say that again. It looks like the architect crumpled & tossed it in the trash, then used the crumpled paper as inspiration. It seems architects are trying to imitate the Frank Gehry/Daniel Libeskiend "Contorted Rainbow Turd" movement that has blighted so many beautiful cities. At least it's in France & we won't have to see it.

[MayDay]

[Fabb]

Originally Posted by MayDay

^Sadly, that is totally correct.
Some people have mentioned the belly of a pregnant woman.

[Metropolitan]

Originally Posted by Fabb

^Sadly, that is totally correct.
Some people have mentioned the belly of a pregnant woman.

I fail to see the pregnant woman. I can understand Schmoo because of the curbs, but the pregant woman, I hardly see it.

The tower is in curb, there's no bump on it.

[dougtheengineer]

I think its hideous. Its unfortunate that engineering advances allow architects to run this wild.....

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by MayDay

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by MayDay

I don't like the building, but congrats anyways to the city of lights.

[Biff]

Do they use Dippity-Do to keep the crown stiff in the wind?

[lax723]

Paris has chosen an American architect to build the French capital's tallest new building since the Eiffel Tower in the 19th Century

The new curving skyscraper will be the centrepiece of a redevelopment project in the north-west of Paris.

Thom Mayne's Los Angeles-based company Morphosis beat off rivals as prestigious as the UK's Norman Foster and France's Jean Nouvel.

Building regulations have kept tall buildings out of Paris for 30 years.

One notable exception is the Tour Montparnasse which rises 180 metres (590 ft) in the south-west of the capital.

An international jury announced the winner, following a contest organised by French property group Unibail as part of a project to revamp La Defense business district.

The Paris city government opposes plans for a new skyscraper in the district, but the project is backed by French public body EPAD, which is in charge of the district's wider renovation, AFP news agency reports.

Ecobuilding

At 300 metres (990 ft), the Lighthouse will come a close second to the Eiffel Tower, which rises to 324 metres.


PARIS TALL STRUCTURES
Eiffel Tower: 324 metres
The Lighthouse: 300 metres
Montparnasse: 180 metres

It is due to be completed in 2012 and will cost an estimated 800m euros ($1.05bn) to build.

Its twin structure will combine a rectangular base with a soaring, organic-shaped tower, capped by a field of wind turbines.

Unibail described the project as an "architectural event... that pays tribute to the major buildings in La Defense - the CNIT and the Great Arch".

Last year, Thom Mayne was awarded the Pritzker prize, the world's top architecture award.

"It's about an icon, and one of the major buildings in Paris," he said of the winning project.

He added the building would be "a prototype for a green building" with a wind farm generating its own heating and a "double skin" of steel and glass to a self-cooling mechanism for the hotter months.

His works include Los Angeles' new mass transit hub, the Taipei Design Centre and Seoul's Sun Tower.

[MayDay]

Thanks for the press release. I'm familiar with Mayne and his other work.

I still say this tower looks like the Shmoo.

[Metropolitan]

Originally Posted by lax723

PARIS TALL STRUCTURES
Eiffel Tower: 324 metres
The Lighthouse: 300 metres
Montparnasse: 180 metres

Well, sorry to correct the news also here, but the Montparnasse tower is 210 meter-tall, not 180. Here is the full list of Paris Top 10:

• Eiffel Tower: 324 m, built
• Generali Tower: 300 m/310 m, approved
• Signal Tower (what you call "lighthouse"): approx. 300 m, approved
• AXA Tower: 225 m, heightening due to start by 2007
• Montparnasse Tower: 210 meters, built
• Total Tower: 187 m, built
• T1 Tower: 185 m, under construction
• Areva Tower: 184 m, built
• Granite Tower: 180 m, under construction
• Gan Tower: 179 m, built

Here is the SSP diagram for Paris:
http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?23993791

[MayDay]

On second thought, I realized that perhaps my Shmoo comparison was a bit harsh. Having reconsidered my initial thoughts, it occured to me that I was in error - it's not a Shmoo, it's a Sea Cucumber.