Paris, France

Designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the $800 million Tour Triangle is set to commence by the end of this year at a site near Parc des Expositions de Porte de Versailles in the 15th arrondissement of Paris.

Originally proposed in 2008, the building has been the subject of heated political debate and aesthetic controversy stirring supporters and proponents on both sides.

The controversy over the 40-story steel and glass building surely was anticipated; the French capital has had a 30+ year drought of buildings over 121ft. 

In 1977, a ban was put into place, shortly after the completion of the 689ft Tour Montparnasse, because Parisians feared that the city center would lose its existing urban fabric to skyscrapers similar to the Montparnasse.

In Le Figaro, Olivier de Rohan Chabot member of Safeguard of French Art stated: “Look at the Montparnasse Tower; it has crushed the Hotel des Invalides (housing Napoleon’s tomb). The monument was built to be grandiose. But what has it become? A dwarf. The tower ridicules it. In this sense, it’s a veritable attack on the beauty of the capital” 

The Herzog & de Meuron-designed Tour Triangle’s height when completed would rise as the third tallest building within Paris city limits behind the 690-foot-tall Tour Montparnasse and 1,063-foot-tall Eiffel Tower.

Also, other buildings in the business district of La Défense, west of the capital, are some of Europe’s highest skyscrapers (Lighthouse, Signal, and Hermitage Plaza towers).

Then, Mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoë, strongly backed the project which is in his opinion “emblematic of Paris’ aura and dynamism.”.

Anticipated to create 5,000 jobs according to local officials, the mixed-use ‘Triangle Tower’ would combine street-level shopping with offices, a conference hall, and a panoramic restaurant above. Even its trapezoidal form garnered unfavorable reactions. 

Agence France-Presse, an international news agency headquartered in Paris, noted that while comparisons to I.M. Pei’s Louvre Pyramid are inevitable, the planned tower’s semblance to “a giant elongated wedge of Toblerone chocolate” might be more appropriate.

Art historian Didier Rykner likened Tour Triangle not to chocolate, but to cheese:

“It’s like a big piece of brie in the sky that can be seen from everywhere … and that’s a problem,” he explained. “I prefer the real cheese.”

Christine Nedelec, the president of the campaign group SOS Paris, explained to The Telegraph that Tour Triangle has “been a scandal from the beginning” and that constructing the building would be an “an economical and ecological disaster.”’

SOS Paris pointed out that building the tower would require the use of three to four times more concrete and steel than a typical new Parisian building and that its irregular shape would significantly increase its energy consumption.

SOS Paris pointed out that building the tower would require the use of three to four times more concrete and steel than a typical new Parisian building and that its irregular shape would significantly increase its energy consumption.

“It’s like a boiler that needs to be on full blast at all times,” said Nedelec.

The city’s left-leaning political factions have been left unusually divided on the project. 

The now Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s center-left Socialist Party (PS) has avoided taking such a hardline stance and is largely supportive, noting that it will “be an asset for the economic development and influence of the capital” and generate “more than 5,000 jobs during its construction.” 

Now with secured financial backing from insurance giant AXA, the giant pyramid appears to be moving forward.

In 2019, Tour Triangle’s developer, Unibail-Rodamco, scored a major victory when an administrative court upheld the lawfulness of a building permit first issued in April 2015, rejecting two appeals that had been filed against the project. 

However, despite the apparent green light, still, last-ditch efforts to block the project are still underway.

Green legislators on the Paris city council, who sit in coalition with Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo, recently denounced the plan as “catastrophic,” a “climatic aberration,” and counter to climate pledges that should be abandoned.

The Greens lamented the fact that the relaunch is “incompatible with France’s objective of halving its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, had been announced “in the midst of the COP26” climate summit in Glasgow.

The colossal (shy of 600 feet) 42-story pyramidal glass skyscraper is tall for Paris and would be the first high-rise tower to be constructed within the boundaries of Boulevard Périphérique, the ring road that encircles central Paris, since Tour Montparnasse. 

Project: Tour Triangle
Architects: Herzog & de Meuron
Client: Unibail-Rodamco