Tour Les Poissons, Modern skyscraper in Courbevoie, France
Tour Les Poissons is a 42-storey, 129.5 m skyscraper on place Charras in Courbevoie, outside the La Défense business district. It joins a light grey slab, its broad face filled with horizontal bands of small dark windows, to a smaller black tower with a gently curved outer face; a narrow dark channel separates the two volumes. The top ten office floors have larger windows than the residential floors below.
Built in 1970 as part of the Zodiaque ensemble, the tower was co-developed by the insurer UAP and the city of Courbevoie, and its facade carried a large UAP sign until 2006, when the company had become Axa. It was France's tallest occupied building until Tour Montparnasse opened in 1973. After Axa left, Westbrook Investments and architect Xavier Sterlin renovated the office floors in 2007–08 and rebranded them Tour Ciel.
The name refers to Pisces, not fish: "poisson" is the French word for the astrological sign. The tower belongs to the Zodiaque ensemble in Centre Charras, whose residential buildings take their names from the signs of the zodiac. Its white and smaller black volumes are meant to evoke the two interlocked fishes of Pisces.
The tower stands on place Charras in Courbevoie, about half a mile northeast of the La Défense business district, within the Centre Charras complex, of which it is the tallest building. The first two floors and the top ten hold a medical center and corporate offices, while the intermediate floors are apartments; only the office levels are open to outside visitors. The upper office floors can be told apart from outside by their larger windows.
The 22 m cylindrical concrete barometer on the roof, nicknamed "Gégène", glowed green or blue according to atmospheric pressure and was dismantled in October 2006. Between 1970 and 2006 the facade also carried a large UAP sign, later Axa, whose computer servers stood on the office floors; locals therefore called the tower Tour UAP or Tour Axa.
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