Foster & Partners wins green light for tallest mixed towers in western Europe
Hermitage sketch by Norman Foster
Paris skyline to gain two 320m towers
Foster and Partners has won planning for western Europe’s tallest mixed-use towers near La Défense on the edge of Paris.
The twin towers, both 320m high, will forever alter the city’s skyline.
The Hermitage Plaza scheme contains cafés, shops and a public plaza at ground level and a hotel, spa, apartments, offices and apartments in the towers.
The towers, whose diagrid structure uses less steel and is intended to emphasise their slender proportions, face each other across the plaza which buries a busy road.
As they rise from an interlocking diamond-shaped plan, they turn outward to address views across Paris.
Grant Brooker, a senior partner at Foster and Partners, said: “Our ambition was to create a project that would inject new life into La Défense by bringing a new type of occupation and creating a new public focus on the edge of the Seine.
“This announcement represents a very important stage in the project’s development,” he said.
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Readers' comments (18)
Just one cornetto, give it to meeeee
if I had two, i'd be greedeee
Nice sketch. Shame it doesn't straddle the road.
Anyone for cricket?
Looks excellent, its a bold and modern design that really will compliment La Defense.
I agree with Jonathan. But does it line up with the Rue de Rivoli, by any chance? Or otherwise it should be rotated 90 degrees to frame a new north-south axis?
Seifert lives!!
Nice! I can see that the Paris vs. London contest is well and alive and getting tougher than ever!
Seriously, this is one darn good looking project: once again, Sir Norman Foster delivers with a striking, ambitious yet environment friendly bold gesture. Vive Paris!
looking at that sketch, with none of the 'bits in the middle', you'd be forgiven for thinking paris was astana
CGI's 3+4 are stunning I wish the BD woudl credit the images with the artists or companies who produced them as they do with photographers..
Is it me, or is this sticking two fingers up to contextualism?