Here are the first photographs of Jean Nouvel's Tour Horizons, an office block in Paris that looks like a pile of three separate buildings (+ slideshow).
The eighteen-storey building is located in the Ile Seguin-Rives de Seine district on the site of the old Renault factories, which closed in the early 1990s for relocation.
Ateliers Jean Nouvel designed the building in three tiers, with a bulky base of textured concrete, a middle section clad with enamelled ceramic and a glass upper shaped like a giant greenhouse.
Clay-coloured ceramic panels create bands of colour around the centre of the building and were intended to evoke the industrial heritage of the site. These stripes are interspersed with white and black rectangles.
Construction completed in June 2011, but the studio are yet to release images of the building's interior.
French architect Nouvel launched his studio in the 1980s and has since worked on a host of projects including the Philharmonie de Paris, set to become one of the world's most expensive concert halls, and Les Bains des Docks aquatic centre in Le Havre.
See more architecture and design by Jean Nouvel »
Photography is by Julien Lanoo. See more photographs by Lanoo on Dezeen.
I hope this is just a trend that disappears quickly!
Simply ugly.
One of the ugliest buildings I’ve seen on Dezeen.
Shame none of the three are nice buildings.
This harks back to the really ugly architecture of the Soviet Union. It was ugly then, and it is ugly now. I can see no redeeming values what so ever.
It is amazing how well everything else looks around this project. Nouvel really helped to push the boundaries here and let others take the spotlight.
It’s decent; I like it. Not as drab as all the others surrounding it, sans the copper-clad steep-roofed one. Balconies badly done everywhere. French windows rule.
How nice to see Dezeen hit so close to home! While I enjoy my walks around Jean Nouvel’s Tour Horizon, I have to say that the overall effect is rather cold and impersonal. Dull even.
I wonder if the mayor of Boulogne Billancourt plans to bring back a touch of mirth to suburban living by replacing old industrial buildings with something geared towards the new younger inhabitants of the area.