Archinect - News

Labor and funding disputes are impelling repair work on the Eiffel Tower

2024-04-18T18:20:00-04:00

To date, only 30% of the tower has been repainted. Adding more than 100 weekly operations to monitor the lead increased annual running costs from €50m to €92m—and may reach a staggering €130m. The unions have also denounced the state of infrastructure, which sees tourists with tickets still queuing for up to three hours.

In February, the Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (or SETE), which operates the tower announced losses nearing $2 million as a result of the weeklong strike. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has sparred openly with both France’s culture and tourism ministers about the tower’s lacking historical monument status and security situation on the Champ de Mars. The presence of lead paint and the pandemic have also combined to frustrate repair work efforts. The landmark’s last official full paint job, the nineteenth since it opened, was completed in 2010.

Rowan Moore on how Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo plans to use the 2024 Olympics as the catalyst for a greener ‘City of Lights’

2024-01-02T13:46:00-05:00

She wants to make it a paradise of low pollution and healthy living, as friendly to pedestrians and bicycles as can be, with new developments planned to promote community life. This is a long-term endeavour, going back to Hidalgo’s predecessor Bertrand Delanoë, who was mayor from 2001 to 2014, but the Olympics have been enlisted to give it a boost. In the face of what Rabadan calls “a lot of political resistance”, the Olympics “gave us the opportunity to accelerate the transformation we need”.

Surveying the broadscale urban greening and pedestrianization program of 2023 ULI Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development laureate Mayor Anne Hidalgo, Rowan Moore declares the slate of changes “absolutely right” for Parisians while admitting that her “rhetoric has a way of outrunning reality.”

The Guardian critic also reversed his colleague Oliver Wainright’s praise of the ‘15-minute city’ concept developed by Hidalgo’s advisor Carlos Moreno, which he sees as “overhyped” and “a bit vapid.” The Opening Ceremony will feature with a 6-kilometer-long parade down the cleaned-up river Seine. Dominique Perrault’s 51-hectare athletes’ village in Saint-Denis, which serves to further showcase many of the methods and 2050 benchmarks championed by Hidalgo, will be turned over to the city for its stewardship and eventually reuse beginning March 1st.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo is the 2023 ULI Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development laureate

2023-12-14T18:03:00-05:00

The Urban Land Institute (ULI) has today announced Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo as its selection for the 2023 ULI Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development, one of the industry’s leading honors for community building and development worldwide.

“La Dauphine,” as she is better known to the press, has spearheaded a renowned program of green investments in the French capital while simultaneously embarking on initiatives aimed at pedestrianization and alleviating urban heat islands, among other key policy drives which have made her into a leading figure in the international movement towards ‘15-minute cities,’ housing justice, and better healthy buildings policies.

“Mayor Hidalgo’s leadership throughout two decades of public service has not only made Paris a healthier, more inclusive, and more livable city today but has also transformed the way other cities think about the possibilities of tomorrow,” Diane Hoskins, ULI Global Chair and the co-CEO of Gensler, said of her accomplishments. “He...