No, it’s on the edges of the city that Paris is mutating, with accelerated changes due to arrive over the next 15 years. The most marked of these mutations, if Paris City Hall gets its way, would be the construction of a ring of towers around the city, placing the French capital, in the shadow, both literally and figuratively, of high-rises and skyscrapers (mini skyscrapers to start) as never before.

Gustave Eiffel’s tower, completed in 1889 and at 312 meters (1034 feet) then the highest monument in the world, may be the grandfather of skyscrapers, but Paris otherwise kept its head down until the 1960s. While the authorized height limit within Paris remained 37 meters (about 8 stories) or less in some areas, permission was giving in the late 1960s and early 1970s to build a spate of high-rise towers on inner edges of the city, notably in the 13th arrondissement (Olympiades) and the 15th arrondissement (Front de Seine).

But it was the Montparnasse Tower that truly challenged the vision of what the skyline of Paris could be when it rose far beyond the standard height and well within the city limits. Inaugurated in 1973, it stands 210 meters (689 feet) high, two-thirds the height of the Eiffel Tower; it’s a foreboding sight from most angles but it does offer a spectacular 360 degree view from its rooftop. After that, Paris again shied away from towers and instead watched contentedly as business (and some residential) towers took shape at a safe suburban distance to the west at La Defense.

In the past 30 years, the debates about new constructions have largely centered around public projects: Buren’s Columns in the mid-1980s and I.M. Pei’s (and President Francois Mitterand’s) Pyramid of the Louvre in the late 1980s were quickly followed by the pharaonic assault of the BNF National Library, another Mitterand project which opened in 1998, and the Quai Branly Museum, President Jacques Chirac’s lovechild born ugly as sin in 2006 but discrete behind its greenery.  Like them or not, those were all national constructions designed with culture and national (as well as presidential) pride in mind.

Plans are now underway for the construction of towers around the inner edge of the capital. The towers as currently imagined would max out at 180 meters (590 feet), small by skyscraper standards but nevertheless a dramatic change of the skyline of the city. In conceiving them, there is no longer any pretense of cultural or even national pride but rather, according to those in favor of the new towers, of economic development and a certain kind of height-inspired prestige. Paris, for all its tourist appeal and its one-upmanship in terms of food, drink, art and all that is urban luxury, remains a city concerned with housing, office space, economic development, and noise and air pollution—in short, with growth and well-being.

Mayor Bertrand Delanoë (Socialist Party) is full steam ahead regarding the towers, and should the current detract his plans then the 2014 mayoral race in Paris will undoubtedly set for years to come the city’s direction in the construction of towers, with the Socialist Party leading the charge for the construction of towers and the conservative party (UMP) not so sure—or at least preferring to have their own friends in on the deal. (It’s likely, however, that, both major parties cavort with the builders and developers.)

Towers have been on the mayor’s agenda for the past decade. A major step toward their construction was taken in 2010 the City of Paris raised the authorized limit in certain sectors to 50 meters (164 feet, about 11 stories) for apartment buildings and has been flirting with developers for projects for office towers or mixed-use towers of up to 180 meters (590 feet). The first of the new towers benefiting from the new height limit will begin casting their shadows over the next few years.

Now comes plans for the Triangle Building, a 180-meter pyramid designed by the Swiss firm of Herzog & de Meuron (Tate Modern of London, Beijing National Stadium, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum of San Francisco, etc.), whose construction City Hall has been pushing for on the southwestern edge of the city near the Parc des Expositions exhibition complex in the 15th arrondissement. (The architects’ visions of the planned towers can be seen here.)

They mayor’s office has for several years now been arguing for the need for the likes of the Triangle Tower and other high rises along the periphery of the capital, claiming that the economic development, competitiveness and very prestige of the capital are at stake. The yea-sayers allege that refusing the solution of height would mummify Paris. Of the Triangle Tower itself, Mayor Delanoë has said that its profile would not only not disturb the city but would “improve both the beauty and the urbanism of Paris” and the neighboring suburbs of Vanves and Issy-les-Moulineaux.

Yet opposition runs strong, arguing that Triangle Tower in particular is economically unsound, contrary to the public interest, harmful to its neighborhood and visual nuisance.

Seeking to show the point of view of those opposed to the Triangle Tower and, more generally, to the eventuality of a ring of towers around the city, France Revisited offered associations in opposition to the project a tribune to present their views to our foreign readership. Patrice Maire, president of the association Monts 14, itself a part of the  Collective Against the Triangle Tower,  stepped up to the plate. Read that opinion on the construction of the Triangle Tower here.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Paris on the Edge: Does the French Capital Need High-Rises and Towers to Stay Relevant? appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Though not an official state- or city-sponsored ceremony, the event was attended by high-level representatives: French Minister of the Interior Claude Gueant, whose ministry is responsible for state security and police, Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, and Brigadier General Gilles Glin, chief of the Paris Fire Department, among other others. U.S. Ambassador to France Charles Rivkin was also in attendance.

Several days ago, President Nicolas Sarkozy paid his official respects to Ambassador Rivkin to honor the 10th anniversary of 9/11 on behalf of the French people.

Today’s two-hour ceremony was held on Place des Droits de l’Homme, Square of Human Rights, at Trocadéro on a rainy afternoon in real time with the events on the East Coast, six time zones away.

Informal speeches, interviews, testimonials of children, presentation of medals, French and American national anthems and other music were punctuated with minutes of silence corresponding to major events of ten years ago: the impacts on the South and North Towers of the World Trade Center, the crash on the Pentagon, the downing of the United Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, and the collapse of the one tower then the other. Unfortunately, each minute of silence lasted no more than a few second before being interrupted by music.

It was nevertheless dramatic music, with the songs in English (from Gospel to “Imagine”) sung by two young singers from Ohio. A French children’s choir sang pieces from the classical moving mourning repertoire.

Several men in the crowd had American flags draped over the shoulders. Someone had a large light-blue European Union umbrella. One man had a USA sweatshirt. Another had a France sweatshirt. The latter two did not appear to know each other.

About 1500-2000 people attended (my guess), including one man who asked me how to get to the Eiffel Tower from there.

A statue of Ferdinand Foch, French marshal of France, Great Britain and Poland, a major military figure of WWI, stood behind the crowd on Place du Trocadéro et du 11 Novembre.

In a video appearing on two large screens, former New York City Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen, commissioner at the time of the attacks, spoke of the historic and continuing close relations between France and the United States as exemplified by the French reaction to 9/11. The video was pre-recorded near the very site of this ceremony during the former commissioner’s recent visit to Paris.

American Ambassador Rivkin gave the Medal of Honor to a young New York fireman, Tony Benetatos, who was on hand to represent the Fire Department of New York.

“Vive la France et Vive les Etats-Unis d’Amérique,” said the American Ambassador. Long live France and long live the United States of America.

Later, the young firemen received a medal from Brigadier General Glin and gave the general one in return on behalf of the Fire Department of New York.

Children read brief texts of condolence and hope. CNN correspondent Jim Bitterman remembered the day and its aftermath. Far too many participants were put on the spot by the MC and asked to comment on their memories of September 11 or on the significance of the day ten years later. What can you say? What the ceremony lacked in eloquence it made up in presence.

Most moving was a man who was working on the 53rd floor of one of the towers that morning and managed to escape down the stairs while crossing firemen going up the stairs. He spoke in a shell-shocked tone of the horror of the day.

The French Will Never Forget (FFWNF), the association organizing the event, was created in 2003 by four Frenchman living in New York. According to the FFWNF website, the association “was created in reaction to the anti-French sentiments which prevailed in a large portion of the American population, following the diverging analysis of France on the situation in Iraq and her ensuing refusal to commit troops to operation Desert Storm.” (They apparently meant the War in Iraq that began in 2003 since Desert Storm took place in 1991.)

The association’s site continues, “A standard cliché regularly returning in several American media, and hammered by various pundits and political figures was that France did not remember what the United States had done for her during the First and the Second World War , and was just ungrateful.”

The association is therefore “Committed to fight this perversion of the truth and to heal, as much as possible, the French American friendship, in these portion of the American population most affected by it… [by launching a] series of actions demonstrating the gratitude of the French people towards their oldest ally for its decisive help in the past century.”

The event ended under blue skies.

A rain-free candlelight vigil took place in the evening.

© 2011, Gary Lee Kraut

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A letter protesting the construction of the Eiffel Tower was published in Paris on February 14, 1887, less than three weeks after Gustave Eiffel broke ground on the tower that would far overtake the Washington Monument as the world’s tallest manmade structure.

The letter was signed by dozens of “personalities from the world of arts and letters,” and though many of the signatories were little known or merely fashionable artists of the day, the letter did carry the weight of such respected voices as Charles Gounod (composer of Faust), Charles Garnier (architect of the Paris Opera), and the writers Guy de Maupassant and Alexandre Dumas fils.

The artists, declaring themselves “passionate about the beauty hitherto intact of Paris,” denounced the planned 300-meter/1000-foot tower as “useless and monstrous,” “a horrendous column of bolted sheet iron.” They claimed that it would “profane” and “dishonor” Paris to have the city government associate itself with “the mercantile imaginings of a constructor of machines.”

“Not even commercial America would want it,” they said.

And they were right.

Eiffel’s project was monstrous. The tower would dominate the low, dense skyline of the City of Light, and do so for no other reason than to demonstrate to what heights it was possible with iron and to attract visitors to the World’s Fair of 1889.

They were right that the tower would eclipse Paris’s glorious monuments of decades and centuries past and that the “beauty hitherto intact of Paris” would be changed in ways hitherto unimaginable. They were right that the tower’s stature would command attention to the point of becoming the very symbol of Paris. And how could Paris be Paris if symbolized by a useless pile of iron? Didn’t beauty and history demand that the French capital be represented by religious monuments such as Notre-Dame or Sacré Coeur (then under construction on Montmartre), or by monuments honoring national glory through war, such as the Arc de Triomphe or the Invalides, or at the very least by the Louvre, a monument to both majesty and art?

They were right that commercial America wouldn’t even have wanted something as frivolous and meaningless as a 1000-foot tower in 1887. At the time, Las Vegas had barely heard of the Can-Can! It would be another 110 years before it got an Eiffel Tower.

They were right about Eiffel’s tower being profane.

But they were on the wrong side of history—and progress. And Gustave Eiffel stood clearly on the other side.

Gustave Eiffel

By the time he embarked on the tower, Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923) was already a successful engineer at the head of an engineering firm of international renown. Bridges and viaducts were his company’s specialty, built in response to enormous growth of railway networks, yet it also designed the metal framework for a variety of structures. In Paris, Eiffel’s company designed the framework for the church of Notre-Dame-des-Champs (6th arr.), the synagogue on rue des Tournelles (3rd arr.), and the Bon Marché department store (7th arr.). The company carried out major projects throughout France as well as in Spain, Portugal, Romania, Egypt, Hungary and Latin America. Eiffel’s company also designed the metallic structure that supports the Statue of Liberty.

In 1884 Gustave Eiffel patented plans for a 300-meter/1000-foot tower standing on four pillars 125 meters/410 feet apart, doing so in the names of his collaborators Emile Nourguier and Maurice Koechlin and himself. There was no actual project to build the tower when Nourguier and Koechlin (long-forgotten names) drew up the original plans, though the possibility of such a colossal structure did grasp the imagination. And Eiffel was well aware that the government intended to approve plans for Paris to host a World’s Fair (Exposition universelle) in 1889.

In addition to his engineering skills and the reputation of his company, Eiffel was a wise businessman who knew how to play politics, deal with financial institutions, communicate with the press, take risks, and get things done. He knew how to convince the organizers of the Fair that his tower was just the thing that was needed to draw attention to the event and demonstrate the industrial potential of the host nation.

In 1886, the organizers launched a competition for plans to built a 300-meter tower, mostly of iron, with a square base 125 meters wide. It was obviously rigged to allow Eiffel to build his tower.

The Eiffel Tower, as it was soon called, was completed on time and within budget in 2 years, 2 months, 5 days. Though practical solutions needed to be found along the way, particularly in preparing the foundations on the pillars on the sandy Seine side of the structure, Eiffel wasn’t a man to embark on a project he wasn’t sure would succeed. In response to complaints from distant neighbors, his company assumed all risks of the tower falling during construction.

Great Heights

In 1884, the Washington Monument had topped out at 600 feet and become the world’s highest manmade structure. Five years later, the Eiffel Tower, reaching 1023, took over as number one. It wasn’t height alone that set the two apart, but, just as importantly, weight. The Washington Monument made for a fine monument of masonry, but weighing in at 90,000 tons, it was a construction of the past. The future was in metal and alloys. The iron of the Eiffel Tower weighed in at a mere 7,300 tons, so light for its size that if placed in a box large enough to enclose the tower it would float at sea (hard to imagine but give it a bit of thought anyway). It remained the highest manmade structure from 1889 until 1930, when the Chrysler Building in New York briefly took over the mantle at 1046 feet.

The organizers of the World’s Fair of 1889 had requested that the tower be built only with French materials, but when it came to creating the elevators no French company was experienced enough to take the risk of an elevator that would cover the variably inclined middle portion. Therefore the American elevator company Otis was invited to construct the hydraulic elevators running from the base to the second level.

Also, the original plans called for no decorative elements, but in the end a decorative trim was added in the form of small arches beneath the first level, and just above the arches were placed the names of 72 French scientists famous for their role in scientific advancements from 1789 to 1889.

Even without decoration, Eiffel had argued in his response to the protest letter in February 1887, “the Tower will have her own beauty.” “Her curves…will give a great impression of strength and beauty.” (A tower is a feminine noun in French; the Eiffel Tower is therefore also known as la Dame de Fer, the Iron Lady.) “Furthermore,” he wrote, “the colossal has an attraction, its own charm, to which ordinary theories of art are hardly applicable.”

The skyscraper was born.

© Gary Lee Kraut

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La dentelle sophistiquée de la dame la plus visitée de Paris…. et mon pied.

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* * *

Steel beams… and my foot.
A painter extends his hand and his brush to take measure of the object…
I extend my foot.

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“So why wouldn’t you give him a second chance?” I ask. “He may be a little selfish but he’s clearly smitten by you. It isn’t as though he was cheating on you.”

“Things haven’t been going well for a while,” she says, “not bad, he’s a nice person, but after vacation last summer—”

Just then the lights on the Eiffel Tower start blinking. We both look out the window then smile at each other. Reflexively, I check my watch to see that it’s 8 o’clock.

“We have time,” she says, then continues her explanation.

A family of tourists sits at the window table behind Monique, a couple and their 15 or 16-year-old daughter. They were speaking German before but now they’re silent, eating. I find it strange, funny, that they’re so focused on their food that they haven’t noticed the blinking tower. The daughter looks up, having sensed me staring at her. Our eyes catch, and to avert my gaze she turns to the window, where she notices the blinking tower. A smile opens on her face, which she now shows to me. I smile back. She looks to her father across the table, then to her mother beside her, both with their faces in their dishes, then at me while she holds back a laugh. She looks down at her plate, then out the window, where she stops to take in the blinking lights.

I watch them too, until I realize that I haven’t been listening to Monique. All I catch is her conclusion, as she lifts the glass of wine to her lips: “I’m not responsible for another’s happiness, n’est ce pas?”

I can only agree.

© 2006, Gary Lee Kraut

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