Following a five-year legal battle, French courts have approved the building of Herzog & de Meuron’s 180m-tall "Triangle Tower" in Paris.
Work on the 41-storey building, the first tall structure to be approved since the 210m Montparnasse Tower in 1969, is expected to begin next year and to be complete in time for the summer Olympic Games in 2024.Â
The tower will by developed by property firm Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield and will contain a 120-room four-star hotel, office space and cultural facilities.
Herzog & de Meuron commented: "It will not only be a landmark from which the urban panorama can be experienced, but also an outstanding silhouette in the system of axes and monuments of the city."
The Swiss firm’s design has had a long journey to this point. Herzog & de Meuron first proposed the building for the Porte de Versailles on the south western Périphérique ring-road in 2008, when its cost was put at €500m. After criticism of from locals, concerned about its aesthetics and the lack of spending on social housing in the city, it was rejected in 2014. It was then approved in 2015, after which it became the subject of a legal battle.
Now the Administrative Court has ruled that the tower is lawful and that the mayor of Paris did not commit a "manifest error" in considering that would not affect "the character or the interest of the neighbouring places".
Image: Herzog and de Meuron’s rendering of its tower
