Between 1958 and 1989, high-rise buildings (banned in the historic center of Paris) were constructed just outside the city boundary, forming the business district of La Defense two miles west of Paris. It is located between the 1989 Grande Arche de la Defense and the CNIT building in 1958, the former exhibition hall of the National Inter-University Consortium for Telecommunications, with an architecturally significant glass façade, designed by Jean Prouvé. (Thom Mayne)
These disparate elements, crowded together and seemingly unrelated, Shops provide an opportunity to mend the site. Several projects have been proposed for this intervention to reunite the site with various solutions such as the Phare Tower, a building of 300 meters for offices signed by the American architect Thom Mayne.
The developer Unibail-Rodamco proposes a new project by Christian de Portzamparc, called Tours Sister, an tall tower it will cost € 630 million (as opposed to 900 million for Phare). A tower of 200 meters for offices and the smaller one is 100 meter high, four star hotel with 400 rooms. The towers with beveled sides are linked by a skybridge 3 story high at 80 meters high. The skybridge will house a spa, restaurant, projection room, and a garden. The projected completion date is 2021.
The Reasons for this change are two different to the current economic situation That makes an office tower as Phare, seems difficult to complete in 2010. Then there are the high operating costs especially energy That are no longer in tune with the times is the growing powers of issues related to sustainable development. The developer Unibail-Rodamco, Which had Obtained the building permit Phare, will have to wait for a new permit if it had not happened we would return to the first project approved. Images by defense-92.fr.