Special Mention
2007 Skyscraper Competition
Manuelle Gautrand
France
Phare Tower is a 300 meter-high new-generation tower at La Défense, on the western rim of Paris, France. The program consists of 140 000 m2 of office space with two restaurants and a rooftop viewing deck for the general public. The concept we are evolving aims at two things. First, express power in a high-rise structure that is a communication device without precedent. Second, introduce poetry by creating a unique building the size of the Eiffel Tower.
Structurally, the tower is designed as an externally exposed skeleton that wraps the office floors in a double-layer mesh of woven metal, lacquered two-tone, white and beige. Both meshes interlace via large circular openings that draw them together. This structural-skin soars up a thousand feet in graceful formal liberty, set free from the usual constraints that plague towers. In fact, it resolves itself on different scales: the individual scale of the offices, which makes them human while opening superb views over the cityscape; and the overall scale of structural might and outsized dimensions. At the foot of the tower, the interwoven mesh flares out to form large round openings that give ground-level space spectacular monumental presence on the esplanade.
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