Herzog & de Meuron
Competition
2006

“Projet Phare”

Rather than produce a sculpted object-signifier or an overstated symbol, we wish to construct a building that draws on historical and natural (physical) necessity. The task is to reinvent the spirit of the place, interpreting the constraints of the site and putting cutting-edge technology at the service of a monumental form perceived as inevitable. The grounds in which the edifice will be anchored and the air into which it will rise are fundamental components of the materiality and clarity of the monumental construction.

The new La Défense tower will be an efficient working tool and an optical machine functioning from the interior toward the exterior and from the exterior toward the interior. It will be a spectacle in itself, with all the dynamics and the variety that that implies. Form, structure and materials will be inseparable in their contributions to the whole. The building will be at one and the same time an imprint on the air and an inscription in the soil, centred on the hollow footprint of a cylindrical penetration into the earth.

Depending on standpoint, the tower will appear to be slender, to have the form of a blade or that of a sail. Its location and its aerial projection in the landscape will be matched to differential treatment of its architectonic characteristics, down to perceivable details related to usage and proximity. Its simple, singular volume, which permits variations in aspect, results from the extrusion of a form provided by the site: the vast profiled triangle was established by determining the accessible anchor points. The envelope of non-reflective glass allows the structure to be seen through it: from the structural grid at the surface down to the cross girders and the core.

We have worked on the transparency of the envelope as a factor for ambiguity associating visual solidity and dematerialisation. The living, vibrant building wall stretches out like a vertical landscape striated by the succession of floors. Two other features of the building contribute to this quality of perceived extensiveness and solidity standing erect in the air: the varying densities of the structural grid and the blurring of the outer edges of its volume.

The broadening of the structural grid from ground to summit of the tower and from the centre out to its edges is dictated by physical and constructional necessity. The notching of its volume at the two eastern and western extremities results from the irregular interruption of the floors that frees up a space for vertical gardens on three levels. This relates to the possibility for the building’s users inside the tower to leave the air-conditioned environment behind and feel the variations of the outside air. For an outside observer, the vertical extensiveness of the building disappears off into the heights. It is however contained within a strictly defined form nevertheless allowing a play on the effects of varying porosity. This erected landscape interiorises urban structure. The lift access corridors cutting right across the core are oriented in the direction of the capital’s most prominent monuments and offer striking views of the Eiffel Tower, the SacrĂ© CƓur and the Louvre. The same axes determine the shape of the outer edges of the floors. The building is both cut through and itself cuts through. In contrast to the model of the introverted monolith protected by an outer opaque or reflective covering and set down on a plane surface, we propose an inclusive simplicity incorporating the orientations intrinsic to the urban landscape and visibly espousing the changing levels within its footprint.

The north-south orientation makes it possible to differentiate between the smooth face along the circular boulevard and the folded surface of the projection over the Place Carpeaux. In addition to the surface vibrancy this generates for the outside observer, and the visual access to the ground level it provides to the occupants of the offices, the undulation of the southern façade contributes to the building’s energy economy: it enables direct exposure of the offices to be reduced as well as producing part of the energy required for the thermal balance of the tower.

The high-rise tower, commonly known as the skyscraper, offers a “direction for beauty” as the aesthetic theoreticians would say in the eighteenth century. Emphasis is placed on the qualities of the sublime: the simplicity of regularity suggestive of infinity. We go against this norm using its counterpoint, picturesque variety, making the vertical upsurge part of a modulation of the givens of the site. The crossing of the tower at its base has been designed on a monumental scale which diffuses off into the heights. Reciprocally, the building’s aerial imprint is settled on the cylinder punched into the soil, at one and the same time penetration and the principle whereby the tower opens up to public space.

Jean-François Chevrier, 2006

299_CI_0611_507
299_CI_0611_507
299_CI_0611_510_W
299_CI_0611_510_W
299_CI_0611_507
299_CI_0611_507
299_CI_0611_503
299_CI_0611_503
299_CI_0611_504
299_CI_0611_504

Drawings

299_DR_0611_012
299_DR_0611_012
299_DR_0610_504_axes
299_DR_0610_504_axes
299_DR_0610_509_niv0
299_DR_0610_509_niv0
299_DR_0610_513_niv29
299_DR_0610_513_niv29
299_DR_0610_518_niv55
299_DR_0610_518_niv55
299_DR_0610_501_sec
299_DR_0610_501_sec
299_DR_0610_500_energie
299_DR_0610_500_energie

Team

Facts

Client
Unibail, Paris, France
Planning
Architect Planning: Herzog & de Meuron, Basel, Switzerland
Structural Engineer: WGG Schnetzer Puskas Ingenieure AG, Basel, Switzerland
Quantity Surveyor : Davis Langdon, London, UK
Mechanical Engineering: Transsolar, Stuttgart, Germany
Specialist / Consulting
Elevator Consulting: Jappsen, Berlin, Germany
Safety Consulting: Veritas, Paris, France
Visualizations: Philipp Schaerer, ZĂŒrich, Switzerland
Building Data
Site Area: 49'513 sqft, 4'600 sqm
Gross floor area (GFA): 1'937'502 sqft, 180'000 sqm
Number of levels: 72
Footprint: 30'138 sqft, 2'800 sqm
Length: 442 ft, 135 m
Width: 114 ft, 35 m
Height: 918 ft, 280 m

Bibliography

“‘Tour Phare’ im Hochhausviertel La DĂ©fense in Paris. ‘Phare Tower’ at La DĂ©fense in Paris.” In: Sonderdruck. Supplement: “Wettbewerbe aktuell.” Freiburg, Wettbewerbe aktuell Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 04.2007. pp. 33-43.

Richard Scoffier: “Puissance de l’Objet. Concours pour la Tour Phare Ă  la DĂ©fense.” In: “D’Architectures.” Vol. No. 161, Paris, Innovapresse, 02.2007. pp. 20-29.

Catherine SĂ©ron-Pierre: “Concours Tour Phare Unibail.” In: “AMC Le Moniteur Architecture.” Vol. No. 167, Paris, Group Moniteur, 02.2007. pp. 11-25.