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3XN debuts an artistic mixed-use design for Paris’ stolid La Défense district

2022-10-28T15:38:00-04:00

3XN has officially debuted its first-ever French design just west of Paris’ La Défense business district in Nanterre.

Featuring a program that combines a traditional office and hotel accommodation through two separate volumes, joined along an east-west axis, that offer views of La Défense’s adjacent towers and Johan Otto von Spreckelsen’s monumental Grande Arche.

“As the first shape you encounter when arriving from La Défense, this building had to be eye-catching and dynamic,” 3XN Founding Partner Kim Herforth Nielsen explains. “The faceted façade and shifting volumes make it a standout in the busy district. The concept — two distinct but complementary designs — is unique in the area.”

Photo: Jared Chulski, courtesy 3XN.

The scheme makes use of semi-reflective aluminum panel cladding to distinguish the Hôtel OKKO as one unbroken massing, while its partner InDéfense office structure splits into smaller forms, extruding to “open the long and narrow si...

Parisian Grande Arche to be Renovated

2014-08-06T20:18:00-04:00

The government has now promised €200m (£160m) worth of "important renovation work" on the south side of the [Grande Arche de la Défense] to begin in October and last for two years. The Grande Arche was designed by Danish architect Johann Otto von Spreckelsen, who won an international competition to design a 20th century Arc de Triomphe but who was later forced through illness to transfer responsibility for the construction to French architect Paul Andreu.

France pledges €200m to restore La Défense's crumbling cube

2014-08-04T13:39:00-04:00

Sited at the heart of France's main business district at La Défense, the enormous and impressive Grande Arche was always more than a monument to the triumph of humanitarian ideals over military glory. [...] A quarter of a century on, however, the crumbling state of La Grande Arche de la Défense might be a metaphor for France's struggling economy. [...] The government has now promised €200m (£160m) worth of "important renovation work" [...] to begin in October and last for two years.

Hoping to improve missed connections at La Défense

2013-07-31T15:34:00-04:00

Alessandra Cianchetta, a partner at AWP, the firm mapping the master plan, acknowledges the enormousness of her task. “La Défense as a concept is a bit obsolete,” Ms. Cianchetta said. “There is no interaction, no hospitality here.”

Georgi Kantchev reviewed plans by the public agency that manages the district to upgrade it's public spaces. The firm AWP wants to add entertainment sites to the main public plaza and build footbridges to connect it with the surrounding neighborhoods.