Architects Herzog & de Meuron have unveiled their design for a triangular building in the Porte de Versailles area of Paris, France.
According to the architects the triangular profile will prevent the structure casting shadows on adjacent buildings, and allow for optimum solar and wind power generation.
The ground floor will incorporate shops and restaurants, while an open public space level with Parisian rooftops will afford views of the city.
Completion is planned for 2014.
Here’s some more information from the architects:
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Projet Triangle, Porte de Versailles
Paris, France
2006 –, planned completion 2014
“Le Projet Triangle” is primarily perceived on the metropolitan scale of the city of Paris. Its elevated stature will lend major visibility to the Porte de Versailles and the Parc des Expositions site within the overall conurbation. It will also permit its integration in the system of axes and perspectives that constitute the urban fabric of Paris.
On the scale of the Porte de Versailles site, the project will also play a significant role in the reorganisation of flows and perception of urban space. The Parc des Expositions site currently forms a break between the Haussmanian fabric of the15th district of Paris and the communities of Issy-les-Moulineaux and Vanves, emphasised by the visual impact of the peripheral boulevard.
The construction of an ambitious building on the Porte de Versailles site will mark its opening and restore the historical axis formed by the rue de Vaugirard and avenue Ernest Renan.
The square of the Porte de Versailles is a complex space in its current configuration. Its initial semi-circular organisation is difficult to interpret given the many visual impediments and lack of clearly identified public spaces between the Parc des Expositions and the buildings opposite.
Building on the square itself would intensify this problem of perception: our project therefore proposes to free this space by positioning itself along the avenue Ernest Renan.
This move offers three major advantages :
- it permits the creation of a public square between the boulevard Victor and Hall 1 of the Parc des Expositions, by reorganising logistic flows.
- It creates a strong link between what are known as the “petit” and “grand” parcs, the two parts of the Parc des Expositions.
- It marks the Paris / Issy-les-Moulineaux axis, allowing the urban space to cross the peripheral boulevard by activating the entire facade of the avenue Ernest Renan.
Situated along the avenue, the project is located at the heart of the Parc des Expositions site, set back from the surrounding residential areas. Its volumetry also takes into account the impact of a high building on its environment. Its triangular shape actually means that it does not cast shadows on adjacent buildings. The environmental approach of the project is also perceptible in this simple, compact volumetry which limits its ground impact and allows the optimum utilisation of solar and wind power due to its excellent positioning.
Apart from its structural and technical qualities, the filigree, crystalline nature of the project permits its integration in the system of perspectives formed by the Hausmannian axes. This dialogue with the city is not however limited to its silhouette, but also defines the internal organisation and texture of the project.
The Triangle is conceived as a piece of the city that could be pivoted and positioned vertically. It is carved by a network of vertical and horizontal traffic flows of variable capacities and speeds. Like the boulevards, streets and more intimate passages of a city, these traffic flows carve the construction into islets of varying shapes and sizes.
This evocation of the urban fabric of Paris, at once classic and coherent in its entirety and varied and intriguing in its details, is encountered in the façade of the Triangle. Like that of a classical building, this one features two levels of interpretation: an easily recognisable overall form and a fine, crystalline silhouette of its façade which allows it to be perceived variously.
This “vertical city” district stands in close relation to its environment and is accessible to a highly diverse public. Taking up the analogy of urban squares, it offers each individual the opportunity to enter a complex of spaces open to all on its levels.
The base of the project is open to all, from the square of the Porte de Versailles and along the avenue Ernest Renan which regains the appearance of a Parisian street, with its shops and restaurants. An elevated square, on level with the roofs of Paris, will offer everyone a unique view of the district and the whole city. This visit might then be extended in the higher reaches of the Triangle, from where the entire metropolis can be discovered.
The Triangle will thus become one of the scenes of metropolitan Paris. It will not only be a landmark from which the urban panorama can be viewed, but also an outstanding silhouette in the system of axes and monuments of the city.
Herzog & de Meuron, 2008
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Posted by Rose Etherington
September 29th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Fantastically interesting BS.
September 29th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
sublime .
September 29th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Have already seen this one ! Should be more fast Dezeen!
September 29th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Seriously, where is the sensitivity, the creativity and the challenge in proposing another pyramid. I am sure there are many more schemes worthy. Shameful
September 29th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
eye-catching. looks like it was carefully planned and conceptualized…only question is…”will it be another scar in the face of paris? or not?” hehehe
September 29th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
looks like BIG? JDS? doesn´t it?
September 29th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Makes me want to dress up like Q*Bert.
September 29th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Didn’t they try something like that in Pyongyang?
September 29th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
HORRIBLE!
Out of context with the city.
Paris doesn’t deserve something so ugly.
September 29th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Rupture d’echelle dans le tissu parisien. Du design et du design, c n est que du design.
September 29th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
ahh, HdM are so sly! They know the french can’t resist blunt geometric forms…can’t say as i care for it much tho…
September 29th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
more LEGO ARCHITECTURE.
disappointing.
September 29th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Interesting contrast to the existing architecture. I’m not quite sure how I feel about it. –Cheryl Janis, author of Planet Pink n’ Green http://www.planetpinkngreen.com
September 29th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Lack of imagination.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
mmm… out of scale?
September 29th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
“Out of context with the city”, “Paris doesn’t deserve something so ugly”, “disappointing”, “Lack of imagination”.
I’m sure the reactions were the same at the time the Eiffel Tower was built. Today it’s the most recognized icon in the world.
September 29th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
h + d have been nutting themselves over these blocks lately.
September 29th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
here, here, J.
September 29th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
H&D PHAROES!
September 30th, 2008 at 12:37 am
where’s the section? it’s rendered as transparent… what does it feel like when you’re 40 meters from glass in all directions? isn’t a pyramid just a regular building surrounding a horrible and oppressive cave? HdM i’m sure has a solution, but why isn’t it celebrated?
September 30th, 2008 at 12:47 am
H & deM = The Brand New Megalomaniacs. Suspended white cubes design couture season - Fall 2008: New York, Paris, …? You’ve got to give it to those Swiss chaps, they don’t do anything by half measures. Why do big when you can do HUGE. Mama says: caution!
September 30th, 2008 at 12:51 am
ahh well actually, The Tower Eifele had some other rather extraordinary features considering its historical context and this project…does not. So this comparison is not altogether relevant.
And im sure noone would at the time have accused it of being born of a “Lack of imagination”.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:47 am
I’d like to see a floor plan. In some views the tower appears as a fat-based pyramid, in others as a slender tower. Is it a 2-D triangle? If so, how exactly does it avoid casting shadows on its neighbours?
Aside from all the formal invention going on at present (somehow starchitects seem immune to the global recession we are apparently slipping in to), there seems to be another art form which is reaching entirely new levels of persuasiveness and verve: the architect’s statement has become a thing of beauty, promising the best, the greenest, the most appropriate - even when the visual evidence provided suggests otherwise.
September 30th, 2008 at 11:20 am
the structure of a grown city like paris (and so many others)
is abstractly reduced to become just the decorative carpet
beneath the XXL-sculpture.
wether we like it or not, this will be the predominant approach
of today’s and tomorrow’s global-super-ego-architects.
September 30th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
A triangle made with a pile of boxes. Is it a pyramid or a pile of garbage? Let’s turn Paris in a little show of Dubai because we can’t stand the Eiffel Tower any more!
September 30th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
the close up looks like the tower for ny and the vitra project etc etc. HdM repeats themself very quickly… btw. i dont like this kind of box pile look at all… they arent boxes at all… they look like boxes squashed inside each other by exactly the size of the floor/roof… where is the relevance for architecture with this structure?
September 30th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
bah!
what a waste of bytes on the internet.
architects only get away with these things for two reasons: 1. because people keep on celebrating this type of crap and 2. because clients don’t know s**t about anything and get fooled by architects. Period.
September 30th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Wtf? 1st of April already?
September 30th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Intéressant!
September 30th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
and as a Parisian I’m sick and tired of living in a city that looks like Disneyland
September 30th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
yimyim: “ahh well actually, The Tower Eifele had some other rather extraordinary features considering its historical context and this project…does not. So this comparison is not altogether relevant.”
I’m not comparing the two projects on their content. All i’m saying is that the reactions, at the time of the Eiffel Tower, were probably the same from the people in the architecture profession.
And for the record, i don’t like the design either.
September 30th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Kim Jong Il would be amused.
If he wasnt dying or dead already.
Next thing HdM should do is finish Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
H&DeM have lost it! This is a rehashed version of their awful New York Project. This project is AWFUL!
October 1st, 2008 at 6:36 am
well, from solid pyramid to transparency, addressing the idea of contemporary…
October 1st, 2008 at 10:36 am
I am so over their work…the bird’s nest was the icing on the cake, now this, most disappointing. They attempt to convey environmental concerns and yet the amount of iron ore consumed by that monster stadium was staggering. Another great firm reduced by the seduction of the pixelated image…
October 1st, 2008 at 12:17 pm
ah the digital paranoia of 1010101010101….
we can’t all live in a georgian terrace house.
October 1st, 2008 at 3:20 pm
No tower in Paris!!! All the charm of Paris is about the roof-top views. This would just denaturate them.
Towers have been tried in the past in the 13th and 15th districts and everybody agrees that it was a mistake. Here another mayor wants to leave a trace of his mandate and manage to breach the interdiction to build higher than 37m.
These new planned towers in Paris are ego-driven, not desgin-driven.
October 1st, 2008 at 4:58 pm
the new manierism has landed!
October 1st, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Disappointing scheme
October 2nd, 2008 at 12:50 am
J: I’m not comparing the two projects on their content. All i’m saying is that the reactions, at the time of the Eiffel Tower, were probably the same from the people in the architecture profession.
obviously you were not comparing the content. I am simply saying consider the reaction within its historical context and that project was much more ground breaking, indeed ‘needed’ and important than this one. Plus it was much more public than an apartment tower! lol
Nath:No tower in Paris!!! All the charm of Paris is about the roof-top views. This would just denaturate them.
I believe they have dealt with this. “…while an open public space level with Parisian rooftops will afford views of the city.” I’d say a nice interpretation.
October 2nd, 2008 at 2:11 am
A CHRISTMAS TREE !! WHAT A JOKE !!
October 2nd, 2008 at 10:51 am
What a mess… A tower block shaped a piece of toblerone. poor show.
October 2nd, 2008 at 3:03 pm
will they be buried inside afterworks?
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:00 pm
IT IS SO WEAK. I HAVE A FRIEND CALLED COBILAAX. tHIS WORK REMAINS HIM TO ME. BUT HERZI AND DEMI BAZI MIKUNAN KHEILI GHASHANG…ALANG DULANG….
October 6th, 2008 at 4:33 am
Good job..We are also doing the same stylistic way for my Bangkok project run by my copycat young partner, Ole…..well he copied that from the Ropponghi tower project done by OMA years ago… shhh its our little secret H&M..
October 6th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
I am struggling to understand how a building of this size can cast “virtually no shadow”. Possibly when the sun is in a certain position, the shadow might be minimised, but since the sun traverses the sky, it is extremely unlikely that no shadow is cast.
The article also claims that the building’s orientation will be optimized to maximize the advantage of solar power, however the sunlight it will be taking advantage of must come from somewhere else. The simple corollary of maximising solar harvesting is to create the largest possible shadow.
HdeM are excellent architects but this looks like a classic greenwash - do Inhabitat interrogate the press releases it receives?
FOUNTAINHEAD
October 9th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
OH
MY
GOD!
October 10th, 2008 at 9:45 am
They are undoubtedly great architects and in general their work has been, in my opinion, exquisite but maybe they have finally jumped the shark.
From the mess of the original Tate Modern extension (admittedly redeemed in the redesign), to the vertical shanty town of 56 Leonard St, to this monstrousity, H & de M seem to be transforming themselves into the latest Meier / Gehry of repeating the same trick over and over and over (’like a monkey with a miniature cymbal’ as Hot Chip might say).
Awful.
November 21st, 2008 at 5:17 am
It’s amazing how many negative emotions are displayed in these comments… C’mon people, realize that the world is more fucked up by the day, live with it, and try to make fun of it, if nothing else works…
Peace…
February 10th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
pyongyang tower replica