“Living in the tower is living a sensation above all. We live in something where we are the only ones above Paris, able to see this magnificent city,” said Christophe Millet, president of the National Council of Architects, whose offices were located until last December on the 47th floor of the skyscraper, out of the 56 it has.
If the Order of Architects had to vacate the premises, like all tenants of the Montparnasse Tower, it was to allow the work starting on March 31 to take place. The goal ? To equip the tower with a facade made of transparent glass panels, a new entrance hall, a luxury hotel, and an agricultural greenhouse on the roof. The skyscraper will gain about ten meters in height.
A tower designed to modernize Paris
With these works, the Montparnasse Tower, long disliked by Parisians, must modernize itself, as if it had become a symbol of an outdated Paris. However, when this skyscraper emerged over fifty years ago, it was supposed to embody Parisian modernity. The building was designed as part of an overall vision linked to the Montparnasse Station, aiming to structure an entire Parisian neighborhood.
In the early 1950s, public authorities decided to redevelop the Maine-Montparnasse district: they dreamed of a Manhattan-style skyline. A decision that fits into a crisis of housing and the necessary modernization of the city. “We were in a major post-war housing crisis in Paris. We built very few houses since World War I, and with the increase in population, we could no longer accept people living in overcrowded conditions in Paris,” explains architect and urban planner Virginie Picon-Lefebvre.
The Montparnasse Station itself needed reorganization. “For geographical and historical reasons, it was no longer adapted to new modes of transportation and flows, particularly following a considerable event, which was, in 1936, the creation of paid holidays. Montparnasse Station provides access to the Brittany coast, and suddenly we realized that it was absolutely impossible to manage this very significant traffic,” the architect said.
The Maine-Montparnasse district had to become a true modern city, a French-style business quarter: in addition to the station, a complex of high-rise office and residential buildings, a shopping center (on the site of the old station), and the Montparnasse Tower were to be built. The project, bold for a Parisian skyscraper, was finally launched in 1968 after years of hesitation: the Minister of Culture at the time, André Malraux, one of the tower’s great defenders, granted the construction permit.
“It was necessary to demolish an area of several hectares to be able to place a nearly unique building,” recalled Christophe Millet, pointing out that such an ideology would be impossible today. The whole area should cover almost nine hectares. The idea of replacing old buildings with a modern building precisely aimed to give a symbol of Paris modernity,” he said.
An unfinished project
The 210-meter-high, 120,000-ton skyscraper, designed by the AOM (an agency comprising architects Jean Saubot, Eugène Beaudouin, Urbain Cassan, and Louis de Hoism de Marien) was finally inaugurated on June 18, 1973.
The overall project envisioned for the Maine-Montparnasse district did not completely come to fruition, and the Montparnasse Tower is actually just a fraction of the initial project. According to Virginie Picon-Lefebvre, “The Montparnasse Tower must be placed in the context of a more global operation: it was supposed to be part of a base that was not completed, which was supposed to go from Rue de Rennes to Pasteur without interruption. It was envisioned to have terraces gradually rising to the level of the station, given that it is a station that is much higher due to the relief. To avoid this cliff effect, the idea of urban planners and architects was to build terraces from rue de Rennes in tiers….”.
The area below these terraces had ambitious plans: cinemas, pools, and other activities that did not require natural light. But cost debates, the inability to agree among different property owners, and the lack of strong project management led to the demise of the project.
The tower, on the other hand, was always designed as a solitary tower, as explained by the urban planner. It was part of a broader vision against the American city model, where tightly packed skyscrapers darken the streets. Architects who engaged in building these towers were rather in favor of a city where towers were not tightly packed next to each other.
An unappreciated tower
When it first emerged, the Montparnasse Tower earned the nickname of the “wart” of Paris. This monolithic, dark block stood out on the Parisian skyline and was disliked by a fraction of the population. The tower’s disrepute was such that four years later, the Paris Council voted to ban the construction of buildings taller than 37 meters within the city walls. The contrast with the Haussmannian style and the dark appearance of the tower displeased the residents.
“We were working with materials in the 1960s and 70s that were very smoked glasses, very dark. A whole generation of towers was built using this technique…. It’s a tower that functions very well from the inside with this magnificent view, its central core, its elevators connected to the basement or directly to the shopping center. It’s really a project of flows, especially interior flows, and not something that interacts with the city of Paris,” explained Christophe Millet.
Virginie Picon-Lefebvre also noted that the tower was poorly received because it arrived too late: “When it was finished, it was the 70s, we were already in postmodernism. We wanted historical references, we wanted to return to the old city. If it had been designed a few years earlier, perhaps it would have been better appreciated. But here, it was too late. We wanted to return to more traditional and classical things,” she said.
In 2017, the architects’ collective Nouvelle AOM unveiled a new project for the Montparnasse Tower, aiming to make the skyscraper brighter and more transparent, less energy-consuming, and more vegetalized. The cost of the project is 750 million euros for a minimum of four years of work. The works will be followed by those of the tower’s base, in a project designed by architect Renzo Piano, originally behind the Pompidou Center, with the aim of opening the shopping center to the outside.
After that, perhaps Parisians will finally appreciate the Montparnasse Tower. Especially since they have a new object of dislike: the Triangle Tower, under construction at the exhibition center of Porte de Versailles, in the south of Paris.
The sought-after modernity?
Despite it all, Parisians have nevertheless gotten used to the presence of the Montparnasse Tower. In 2005, traces of asbestos were detected in the steel and glass building. The asbestos removal work was difficult, leading to discussions about demolishing the much-criticized tower. However, Parisians were against it: according to a survey by Nouvel Observateur, 83% of them rejected the idea.
The tower has become a landmark for the capital’s residents,” said Virginie Picon-Lefebvre. “It can be seen from afar. An American theorist named Kevin Lynch theorized this: cities need signals, they need landmarks, and it is an urban landmark, what we call a ‘landmark.’ When you come out of a metro somewhere, you will see the Montparnasse Tower and say, ‘Oh, okay, this is south, so I know where I am.’ And that’s quite important in constituting a city.”
Therefore, in 2017, the collective of architects Nouvelle AOM presented a new project for the Montparnasse Tower, aiming to make the skyscraper brighter, more transparent, less energy-consuming, and more green. The much-criticized “wart” of Paris must transform and even gain about ten meters in height. The project cost: 750 million euros for a minimum of four years of work….
After all, maybe Parisians will finally appreciate the Montparnasse Tower. Especially since they now have a new object of dislike: the Triangle Tower, under construction at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in the south of Paris.
