The debate surrounding Herzog & de Meuron's Tour Triangle is picking up this week amidst news that the €670 million ($757 million) project will begin construction within the next month in spite of a torrent of backlash that has beset the development since its announcement in 2008.
As the plan moves forward, a last-minute effort has propped up among Parisians intent on making a final stand against the looming tower.
Located in the 15th arrondissement, the 42-story glass triangle would become the city’s third-tallest building outside of the city’s bifurcated La Défense business district. The mayor of the 15th (who compared the development to the Hydra of Lerna) lobbed a last-minute effort to postpone the plan at yesterday’s meeting of the Conseil de Paris, stating that an office building of its type is no longer necessary in the post-pandemic economy, which resulted in a verbal back-and-forth between himself and socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo, who has been an ardent supporter of the project.
Another attempt to stop the project comes in the form of a recently-launched criminal investigation into its bidding process, which was completed “in the absence of any competition,” according to the controversial opposition leader Rachida Dati and a group called SOS Paris.
The project already thus far withstood such efforts throughout its fraught history, narrowly surviving several previous attempts to block approval that eventually met their end in the complicated French judicial system. Speculation will remain until groundbreaking, with some welcoming the project as a refreshing addition to a city they find a bit too architecturally staid.
“I find it reassuring that Paris is building provocatively again. They were so safe for so long (except Jean Nouvel and a few others)," one commenter said on Archinect.
What's your take on the impending plan? Would a glass skyscraper ruin or add to the Paris skyline? Sound off in the comments section below.
18 Comments
Geneva might be a better location.
The photo renders used in this article are out-of-date. The design has been drastically simplified over the years. The latest renders can be found on Triangle official website: http://tour-triangle.com/
Regards
Looks much less pixelated now...
Historical context, social and cultural appropriateness, and law (which was changed to allow this PoS) are all immaterial in neoliberal society.
Say all you want, this scale is inevitable. The dwellers are organizing and getting on with their lives Airbnb style. People will hate it already the rudeness towards Eiffel but they will forget before it's too much of a burden for them... Wow, what a problem, really. Daylighting into an upper Paris and Eiffel Tower is looking at you as "huh!" But who knows, maybe Eiffel finally meets her sharply lit prince. That is my wish and I hope it works out before the skies become too crowded with a lot of bad people.
The megastructural thinking is finally evoking wider interest since we have amazing technologies now and a fantastic and growing threat like climate change. More importantly, architects who were directly part of it in their younger years are still around. I happily predict next few years I'll be looking at a lot of metabolistic megastructures as student projects.
Here is an interview with Glen Small by Anne Hars on megastructures via his work on Biomorphic Biosphere.
Exactly the problem. We'll fix it with technology!
Beyond the need to build more densely in response to climate change, I'm not sure megastructures is the way to go. For starters, they are too heavily dependent on technology. Then there's the question of adaptability and maintenance. But for my money, it's the fact that they make a person feel tiny and irrelevant in the urban landscape. We need to build places worth preserving if we are to adapt to a time of scarcity. I'm all for technological solutions, but why throw money and recourses when there are better solutions that engender affection rather than stuffing people into giant containers.
Technologies like: advanced organic chemistry and biology, structural innovations, advanced agriculture and food productions, self constructibility and dismantling, infrastructure-grid-less buildings, less dependence on capitalist marketing and more on humanistic growth and exchange systems. I can go on, I want to be cautiously optimistic. TT building which triggered this conversation is a real estate thing but there are some potentially useful ideas that are being applied here from the engineering and architectural point of view. We have really urgent and immediate triggers to accelerate the change in the built environments we design. Integrated organic and artificial systems is the future.
I hope those technologies come to fruition and I hope they make a difference. Given the urgency, the question is what can we do now that's low-tech, scalable, and will get public buy in. Then there's the question of getting a government nimble enough to get these and other long term high tech solutions into place asap.
Fascist architecture imo.
A building designed as a vertical forced perspective making anyone standing at the bottom feel small and insignificant. It is a different spatial experience from the Eiffel Tower. One can walk under the tower and the exposed structure gives it a human scale.
I think they were trying to create the illusion of the world's tallest building. Unfortunately it seems to be devoid of humanity.
A lot of blah concerning 'public access' in the PR materials. In Paris in today's environment? It will be a locked-down enclave for the super-rich.
In any event it has already been done.
who gets the tip?
I'm not clear to what extent the project is needed, valuable, or at any rate inevitable. It is nowhere near as obtrusive as Tour Montparnasse.
Or Centre Pompidou, for that matter—I've always had problems with its scale.
And, really, this is not one of the most historical or historically significant parts of Paris.
It does try to fit in without being overpowering, adds lightness, and might even set the tone for the neighborhood. The concern is what might come next, Orhan's point, I believe.
Another collab with Kapoor? Tour Triangle in Vantablack
I like how the form seems to change with different views - a visual trick Pei Cobb Freed played with a lot in the 70s/80s. No doubt the tower will not be as transparent as the renders show but it does its best to look unassuming despite the vast size. The size itself is a fait accompli - developer economics and zoning politics saw to that.
I blacked the triangle in to draw attention to the surrounding area. Zoom in. I meant to say the neighborhood wasn't especially significant architecturally. It is, in fact, rather nebulous and in transition. The triangle might clarify, elevate, and guide the transition.
Unless a half dozen more tall structures rush in.
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