Tour Signal, Unfinished skyscraper project in La Défense, France.
Tour Signal was a planned skyscraper in the La Défense business district west of Paris, designed to combine offices, apartments, a hotel, and shops in one tower. The site sits at the western edge of the district, where La Défense meets the neighboring town of Puteaux.
Architect Jean Nouvel developed the design in the 2000s as part of broader plans to expand La Défense westward. The project never broke ground after the developers Medea and Layetana pulled out in 2009 following the financial crisis of the previous year.
The tower's name came from the competition it won, launched by EPAD in 2007 with thirty candidates and eighteen teams shortlisted. Jean Nouvel's Ateliers won on 27 May 2008. Each of the four stacked cubes was to be pierced by a large coloured loggia, which Nouvel described as public spaces in the air, with platforms hosting activities meant to encourage exchanges between the tower's occupants.
The site was above the Demi-Lune interchange on the boulevard circulaire, between the Pacific and KPMG towers, the Quatre Temps shopping centre and the Kupka building, in Puteaux near Nanterre. The area is served by metro and RER lines. Nothing of the tower remains, but the location shows how it would have related to the Grande Arche and the western edge of La Défense.
Each of the four stacked cubes was to be pierced by a large coloured loggia, a tall atrium bringing daylight and ventilation into the block. Jean Nouvel described these four loggias as public spaces in the air, fitted with platforms for activities encouraging exchanges between the tower's occupants.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 93,037 contributors worldwide.
