BBC: New Morphosis tower in Paris to rival Eiffel Tower

[Bogtrotter]

I guess it depends on the internatioal architectural community to decide whether there is anything worthwhile in the project. If it is an abomination- then hey, the city (nation) is trying at least. If, on the other hand, this new revolutionary design is significant in some way- the juices will flow in the architectural community and we'll see what good can come from it. Perhaps they'll dismiss some aspects of it- reap heartfealt ideas from others. But at least in the proposal the project is in the international 'game'. If you're not striving to break the mould from time to time in an attempt to find other options- then why the hell are you interested in architecture?

 

[adma]

How can you learn anything useful from studying something that is second rate - other than never to imitate it?

Robert Venturi tried.

but what's wrong with admitting that something doesn't 'work' aftwards and learning from it, rather than dismissing off-hand the consensus of the unwashed masses as simply not 'getting' something? Personally I'd rather have a lot of cheesy faux-historicist stuff that meets the street well and offers an inviting and urban environment than a city full of wind-swept empty canyons lined with brutalist monoliths, no matter how beautifully executed.

And again as a bow to Venturi, when it comes to true electrifying urban dynamism, why must it be either/or when it can be both/and?

Especially since definitions of works/doesn't work can be a lot more fluid, even among supposed "masses", than they might have seemed back when "From Bauhaus To Our House" was first published. F'rinstance, I'd argue than a proposal to dynamite John Andrews' Scarborough College on behalf of something Duany-Plater-Zyberkian would seem *more* barbarically philistine than it might have a quarter century ago, *not* less.

And then, to get post-Brutalist, there's the matter of Thom Mayne's own Graduate House, which has been subject to a lot of pretentious archispeak and archispeak-wannabe hooey on its behalf--and sPaHa failed!--but still, somehow, God bless the hooey, without it it wouldn't be half as fundamental to the city. (I guess it's a bit like preferring Courtney Love to an insipid/wholesome girl-next-door; or even accepting her alongside...)

 

[tudararms]

"And again as a bow to Venturi, when it comes to true electrifying urban dynamism, why must it be either/or when it can be both/and?"

Indeed, I think this should be the objective. I would also suggest that buildings that are or become popular do inherently succeed on these levels.

 

[samsonyuen]

Neat building! I wonder how it'd look twenty years after completion. Still as shiny and new looking, or like our First Canadian Place?

 

[tudararms]

I don't think that would ever be allowed to happen in Paris. The people would rise up (again). They must be due for an uprising soon, surely?

 

[Bogtrotter]

Yeh- the French are pretty agressive when it comes to their country, and quite confrontational when it comes to internatioanl politics. Last I was there I had a verbal exchange with a guy in a bar over Canada. He thought it was part of the UK still. Not the norm surely!

 

[tudararms]

Didn't Haussman design the new streets of Paris so as to make uprisings more containable?

The funny thing is the French seem to like a good dictator as much as a good uprising...they go hand in hand I guess.

 

[andreapalladio]

Hausmann designed all those wide boulevards so they'd be much more difficult to barricade than the late midaeval streets they replaced.

 

[wyliepoon]

Arch Record

Link to article

Morphosis Creates a Guiding Light for La Défense

December 13, 2006
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On November 24, Morphosis, with Thom Mayne, was chosen in a competition to design the “Phare,†or Beacon Tower, in La Défense, an area of office towers west of Paris.

Unibail, developer of the tower in partnership with EPAD, the public body for area development, calls the Morphosis project a symbol of “rupture†with the past. To be completed in 2012, it marks the first stage in the renaissance of La Défense.

Located between the Grande Arche and the 1958 exhibition hall CNIT, Morphosis’s 68-story, $1.1 billion project seems to grow organically from the site. An undulating double skin on the southern elevation comprises a layer of glass over steel panels that have been perforated to appear transparent while limiting heat gain. The flatter northern facade is clear-glazed. At the base, a flap opens in the building’s skin like a slit skirt, exposing office floors around a 197-foot-high lobby the opens the building to the public and the adjacent mass transit station, creating what Mayne describes as a “vertical piazza.â€

The design features several eco-friendly characteristics in addition to southern shading. The tower rises 984 feet above the plaza to a ragged top edge of steel, constituting what the architects call a “wind farm,†which will provide some electricity to the fans in the building’s natural ventilation system.

Also to be built in La Défense is the 50-story Generali by French architects Valode et Pistre, who have put giant wind turbines and an army of solar panels on top of their tower to help generate electricity and hot water.

Jean Nouvel, one of the 10 architects in the competition that included Rem Koolhaas and Norman Foster, had already designed a tower for the Phare—also known as Tour Signal—site in 1989; his cylindrical “Tour Sans Fin†was never built.

 

[Minato ku]

Some news

Tour Phare

The skyscraper is 296m (971ft) tall.
It will have 146,988 m² (1,582,182 sq ft) of floor space.

The construction should start near 2012.

Cladding test

A picture of the building permit.

Picture by Brisavoine

 

[Roy G Biv]

Hideous.

 

[khris]

Yikes. That is one ugly tower.

 

[Minato ku]

South side

East West view of inside the tower.

Overall plan

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Oh god, thanks Minato ku - personally I love Morphosis, but understandably it's an acquired taste; and yes, even then I wouldn't want a city filled with their work, it's just a bit too schizo in that case.

AoD

 

[Minato ku]

Some new renderings