Paris will build a new emblematic Tower

French architect Jean Nouvel, creditor of the prestigious Pritzker Prize 2008, won the tender to build the Signal Tower, which will be 300 meters high, almost as much as the Eiffel Tower, in the financial district of La Defense, a neighborhood of skyscrapers in the outskirts Paris.

Signal Tower Project in Paris

The question is: Will Paris change its architectural icon?. Will the Signal Tower by the new symbol of renewal, promoted by Sarkozy?. A further discussion between tradition and modernity, between the weight of history and the future to build.

The project is mounted on 140,000 square meters, and was imposed on the designs of the English Norman Foster, author of the reform of the German Parliament in Berlin, and the American Daniel Libeskind, winner of the reconstruction project of “Ground Zero” in New York in the place where the Twin Towers were.

Project Nouvel won over the triple tower erected on a garden, proposed by Frenchman Jean-Wilmotte, or the 310 meters in the form of “H”, the project of another compatriot, Jacques Ferrier, author of the flag to represent France at the Universal Exhibition of Shanghai in 2010.

Nouvels Signal Tower, lower than the emblematic Eiffel Tower but higher than the Montparnasse tower, is a vertical construction that aims to “create a strong polarity in the heart of Paris, and develop a great attraction, always in relationship with its natural surroundings, “says the information disseminated by the organizers.

The new technology golem, which will be completed in 2015, it’s going to devote its space to offices, housing, hotel services, government units, shops and restaurants.

The construction of the Signal Tower fits into the renovation project of La Defense, which was launched in 2006 by the current president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior. These changes provide for the construction or renovation of 450,000 square meters of offices and 100,000 square meters of housing by 2015.