Tour Part-Dieu, Skyscraper in Part-Dieu district, Lyon, France
Tour Part-Dieu is a 164.9-metre office skyscraper in Lyon's Part-Dieu business district, designed by the American firm Araldo Cossutta & Associates and built from 1972 to 1977. Its main body is a 144-metre cylinder with 39 floors, topped by a 23-metre transparent pyramid that lights a hollow central shaft. The top floors hold a Radisson Blu hotel.
Built between 1972 and 1977 by the American firm Araldo Cossutta & Associates, the tower was inaugurated in 1977 as part of the new Part-Dieu business district, meant to signal the district's presence and mark a virtual axis running east toward Villeurbanne's Gratte-Ciel. It was then the fourth-tallest building in France. Its construction proved economically disastrous and held back the district's development for a decade after opening.
Locals call the tower "Le Crayon" because of its pencil-like silhouette, a name that has stuck for decades. This nickname shows how the building sits in people's minds as a familiar landmark they reference in conversation.
The building is accessible from street level, with public areas in the lower floors available to visitors. Note that the upper section is reserved for hotel and office staff, so access is restricted to those spaces.
The tower's hollow core lets daylight pass through the transparent 23-metre pyramid at the top and reach the hotel rooms arranged around a central shaft on the upper floors. The architect also set the roof at roughly the height of Notre-Dame de Fourvière. A public webcam at the summit streams a panoramic view of Lyon.
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