Nouvel scoops Paris skyscraper
- Published: 28 May 2008 11:42
- Author: Max Thompson
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- Last Updated: 28 May 2008 14:02
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Jean Nouvel has beaten Foster + Partners and Daniel Libeskind to win the competition to design a 300m-tall Paris skyscraper set to rival the Eiffel Tower.
The Signal Tower will be the centrepiece of La Défense in Hauts-de-Seine – a commercial district to the west of Paris that Nicolas Sarkozy promised to rejuvenate when he ran the area before becoming President last year.
Now the new district head, Patrick Devedjian, has promised that Nouvel's elongated, multi-coloured cube, which will be adorned with giant screens, will become 'the most important architectural development [in France] since the Eiffel Tower'.
The appointment is particularly sweet for Pritzker Prize-winning Nouvel because of a failed attempt to build another tower at La Défense 19 years ago – a failure which caused his practice to be declared bankrupt.
The building, along with two other 300m-tall blocks, is due for completion in 2013.
