Tour Duo, Office and hotel complex in 13th arrondissement, France.
Tour Duo is a pair of towers by Jean Nouvel, 180 m (39 floors) and 122 m (27 floors), at the southern end of Avenue de France. Seven of the eight facades are inclined, by up to 5 degrees, more than the Tower of Pisa. Duo 1 has a double glass skin with reflective scales; Duo 2 has a single skin with enamelled glazing and stainless-steel sunshades. Both stand on a shared base with nine parking levels.
The project, designed by Ateliers Jean Nouvel, won the Paris city hall competition on 24 April 2012, with Anne Hidalgo then supervising as deputy mayor. Quebec investor Ivanhoé Cambridge signed the purchase promise in March 2013, the building permit was issued in September 2015, and work began in late March 2017 after a lease was signed with Natixis. The towers were delivered in 2021 and 2022, and the MGallery hotel in Duo 2 opened in 2022.
Jean Nouvel described the two towers as dancers in balance, leaning as if putting their heads out of a window to look down Avenue de France. Seven of the eight facades are inclined, up to 5 degrees, more than the Tower of Pisa. The top ten floors of Duo 2 hold an MGallery hotel decorated by Philippe Starck, with 139 rooms and a bar terrace.
The complex sits on Rue Bruneseau in southeastern Paris, close to the Seine and the Bibliothèque François-Mitterrand station. Visitors can view the exterior architecture from street level, while access to the interior spaces is limited to guests and tenants.
Both towers lean in opposite directions, creating an asymmetric composition that appears especially noticeable from the banks of the Seine. This tilt follows no technical necessity but was chosen as a design decision to suggest movement.
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