Is the Tour Montparnasse as bad as most Parisians think? Do the renovation plans look promising to you? Also, consider subscribing to help me reach 20.000 subscribers! -Lukas
Though, it seems very out of place. Seriously. Not perfect now but consider 200 years from now. I dunno. Much love from Chicagoland to the French people ❤❤❤🇺🇸🇫🇷
Reminds of how people called the world trade centers as the boxes the Empire State Building arrived in because people really hated its design at the time lol
In paris we say the best view to see Paris it's on the roof of Montparnasse tower... Because we don't see it. But in Paris and in France we never say Sacrebleu, it's what USA movies think French says but it's wrong, no one say sacrebleu
It is not usual now, but has been used for a long time. It was an alternative to sacredieu judged less profane. Eugène Labiche used it in the 19th century in one of his comedies for example.
@@MindTheMap It was the plan even before the construction. It was supposed to be a temporary construction for the universal exposition of 1889 with a 20 years concession. There was a lot of protests around that time because people thought the tower was ugly. Most homeowners with apartments with direct view on the tower were also thinking that the tower presence in sight would decrease the value of their property (of course quite the opposite happened over time). They kept it because its height was extremely useful for telecommunications. And after that, the tower was already the symbol of Paris, it was out of question to dismantle it anymore. Also, the joke you mentioned was indeed originally ment for the Eiffel tower as mentioned by @maxfi878. It was the French writer Guy de Maupassant's answer, who notoriously hated the tower but was having lunch on its first floor regularly, when asked why.
Yes but 20 years after its construction nobody wanted to destroy it and the Eiffel had a lot of fans from the very beginning (there are always people against anything) Whereas almost anybody likes the Montparnasse tower 50 years after its completion, except some modernist architects In fact Parisians just got used to it but there wouldn’t be any successful petitions or big protests if the tower was about to be torn down, believe me It’s just a tower among others, you have plenty of similar buildings in the business district of La Defense and in another places around the city center
The joke about the tower being the best place to see Paris because you can't see the tower is actually the same joke from the TV show "Absolutely Fabulous" that I absolutely adore, but also can't remember which episode it's from. Saffy says it to Eddie
I did not expect to see a 1992 BBC sitcom referenced in the comments but here we are. The plot summary makes it sound like it inspired Emily in Paris to some extend.
In 1969 I was studying architecture at the Ecole des beaux Arts in Paris. The director for the planning of Paris lectured us about the future development concept. It was to put high rise office blocks over the four train stations. That way the workers would take the train into Paris, an elevator to their office and reverse the process at night. I asked; wouldn’t it make more sense to build the offices out in the suburbs and skip the daily train rides. I was roundly criticized. First for having an American accent and second for being unable to understand French Urban Planning Theory. Ultimately, the gigantic offices over the train stations were abandoned.
@@larrysorenson4789 le plus étonnant est que le quartier de La Défense avait déjà commencé son développement à cette époque donc je ne comprends pas pourquoi cette tour était nécessaire En réalité derrière la façade de rationalité technocratique ce projet obéissait à la mode idéologique de l’époque : il fallait faire des tours pour montrer qu’on était une ville moderne (Lyon et Nantes ont eu la leur dans le quartier des gares à la même époque) En fait on peut avoir des zones de bureaux sans avoir besoin de tours d’autres quartiers de Paris le démontrent amplement. La forme architecturale de la tour est en réalité plus souvent un choix idéologique et esthétique qu’une nécessité pratique il suffit de voir les centres de beaucoup de villes nord américaines où des tours côtoient d’immenses zones de parking sous utilisées La tour n’est pas simplement un immeuble de grande hauteur mais une forme architecturale très spécifique (en réalité selon moi une grande partie de Manhattan est composée d’immeubles de grande hauteur pas de tours) Je ne suis pas contre dans l’absolu. Ensuite se pose la question esthétique : si on avait construit une tour art deco ou de style beaux arts comme on en trouve encore à New York je pense que ça n’aurait pas suscité un tel rejet
@ wow! You must have spent years here to be able to sum up the home of 350 million people so succinctly. And since you are certain that your assessment is correct there is nothing scholarly to be said other than take comfort in your ignorance. Reality may overwhelm you.
@ sorry for taking so long to get back to you my friend. I will reply in order. In my estimation the tower was the result of bureaucratic ego or even that of one highly placed person. That is probably the only way in which such s thing would possibly have been allowed. Very tall buildings must, by their nature, exhibit current technology. Unlike the Eiffel Tower where the structure is the elegant architecture, a box may not inspire interest or awe. And so the architectural designers labored intently to discover an appearance that satisfied their aesthetic. From the macro standpoint it is clearly the anthesis of the Eiffel. It is a solid black obelisk as the foil to the expressive transparency of the Eiffel. Controversy abounds. Its “architecture” can only be seen on the micro scale, that is the period details that gradually unfold as the interiors are explored. The desire to be a modern city nay be misplaced. The world need not appear modern if it functions well. It is conceivable that modernity in an ancient urban context is best confined to specific zones. The case for total integration of a modern style into an ancient aesthetic lies in the Lemans Cathedral. It’s construction took centuries and during that time the architecture of trend changed. Ultimately, it has portions from many different architectural and structural styles. Yet rather than being a cacophony of competing vernaculars, everything melds together beautifully into one whole that can be appreciated even more when its parts are studied. So an argument may be made for tasteful integration of old and new. In this instance the controversy will remain for many years as “taste” is debated. Personally I prefer artistic integration over an overt assault on the senses. To be continued. Larry in the Arizona Desert
While it might be considered somewhat of a technicality, La Défense is 3 kilometers west of Paris city limits and part of the Département Hauts-de-Seine.
@@MindTheMap You are wrong, while La Défense is not in Paris, there are skyscrapers within the municipality of Paris. Look up Tours Duo or Tribunal de Paris (built in the last 10 years)
@@ErickHumboldt yes, Paris. The only city on earth that doesn't want to admit its fat and does not consider its true borders to be its true borders. A woman of cities. It is Paris, anyone who says otherwise is bullshitting himself. How do you go to la Défense? Hauts-de-Seine métro? No. Its by Paris métro.
Meanwhile in London: You get an ugly modern and soulless skyscraper! You get an ugly modern and soulless skyscraper! EVERYONE GETS AN UGLY MODERN AND SOULLESS SKYSCRAPER!
Those skyscrapers have ruined the charm of the historical centre. They should’ve just built them all in other districts like they’re doing in canary wharf
@@yourfriendlyneighbourhoods8202 the historical Centre was already destroyed from ww2. It was inevitable that they would construct skyscrapers with that opportunity.
1st time I saw this tower was in SimCity 4, immediately fell in love with the bold yet somehow elegant design. I remember asking a friend as well as my uncle, when they travelled to paris, to take photos of it, which they did :D
As a Parisian, I am not familiar with this controversy, however George Pompidou was a very controversial president who tried to plough through Paris with urban freeways. Going against this plan required a lot of pressure from locals and politicians, and still today we are recovering from his watered down highway construction by demolishing and repurposing redundant highway entrances and exits, car tunnels etc. It's likely that the fact Pompidou pushed for the construction of this tower is why it was so heavily opposed, and not so much because it is "ugly", but that is just my opinion. Furthermore, most parisians don't daddle around anymore because we are mostly underground taking the metro / RER or out looking for a store or some green space, not gazing at our own city on the seat of a ferry or atop a high place. It is tourists who complain about the tower I imagine. But Paris isn't (just) a museum, it's a real city with a serious housing affordability problem. Tourists should come here, but their opinion of this tower being ugly is not important...
Building skyscrapers won't resolve the housing crisis. Skyscrapers are for the rich to invest. Their actual occupancy isn't very high. They're also expensive to maintain and supply cuz you need to move up. Purely practical thinking has already bulldozed infinite acres of historic development in favour of freeways and parking spaces. Cities become less and less friendly, they turn into places where you have to rather than want to be. You should appreciate the beauty of Paris. It's fragile
@@ilghiz Yeah, 10% vacancy rate is suuuuch a high number... I don't know if you've lived near Paris, but it's rather jarring to take an unreliable RER 1 hour in, 1 hour out everyday. It would be nice to have the option to live for cheap where I want to be. But if you made appartments cheaper (turn luxury appartments into "low cost"), you'll just saturate the housing supply, and the auctionning process will be a nightmare. You can't solve the issue of housing affordability without aknowledging the effect of supply and demand.
2:42 You learn sthg every day, thank you. I was equating the fuss stirred up by this block with the fall on your sword fate of the Euston arch in London and the sea change thereafter. The Seven storey structure stricture at law in Paris and the dropping of many plans to tear down our building heritage in the Royaume Uni. Apparently they increased it to twelve storeys last year but I wish that we had one here in London. Even the archaïc lines of sight of Saint Paul's have been broken recently and they say that there's over two hundred skyscrapers in construction or with permission just waiting to scar Mary Poppins's cityscape!
London is truly confusing with their sightlines and St. Pauls, considering for example how far away 20 Fenchurch Street is from the cathedral. I was also surprised that they now have basically hidden the Swiss Tower (the Gherkin) behind a wall of skyscrapers. Will be interesting to watch how London's skyline develops.
It seems like the biggest issue is just that it obviously isn't designed to be completely alone like it is. If there were other buildings nearby of similar heights, it wouldn't stand out nearly as badly. Any building that much taller than its surroundings it's always going to look out of place.
Isnt the box joke just a re-hash of the Twin Towers being the boxes that the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings came in? Also i went up the Tour in 2015, the view was great, it was just clouds as far as the eye could see because it was super dense fog that day....
And we had that same joke in Seattle, when a similar black-box skyscraper was built: the box the Space Needle came in. Now, of course, you can barely see that skyscraper for the forest of subsequent towers downtown!
The most controversial building in France would be the palace of Versailles, or some other building like the Bastille, even the Eifell tower was controversal in the beginning.
As a Parisian born and raised, I never understood the hate against it... I love ma Tour Montparnasse, it's vintage, it's odd, and yeah it sticks out like a sore thumb but that's what I love about it
La Tour Eiffel is beautiful whatever you say. La Tour Montparnasse is just a box, a naked parallelopiped. It would look nice in New York or Shanghai among similar boxes creating a composition together with them. In Paris it just stands out like a pimple on the face. If it were a bit more decorative, transparent, were art deco or art nouveau, it'd raise less controversy. But it's a bare box.
Unfortunately from la Tour you can still see Sacré-Coeur, the ugliest building on the Right Bank. You might like to do an episode on the construction of that monstrosity. Try reading Zola's novel "Paris".
That sky garden in London is really crap in the winter. The space is too large an airy to heat properly. A Christmas party where you have to keep your winter coat on is not fun!
Tour Montparnasse is not at all the only scrycrapper in Paris. Hyatt regency tower? The Olympiades neibourghood? Beaugrenelle ? The zamansky tower? The "tours duo"?
Not to mention the big elephant in the room that is La Défense, the most dense concentration of skyscrapers in Europe, less than a kilometer away from the Bois de Boulogne. Yes it's not in Central "Paris" but that doesn't change the fact that it exists.
As a Parisian, I can't disagree more. Montparnasse is a great building because of its boldness, because it's the only one in its kind (alongside to a lower extent Tour Zamansky). The contrast it has with the lowrise appartements buildings all around Paris shows that it's not a city of the past. Conservation of landmarks is important, but at some point, you start becoming a museum instead of a place of greatness if you don't embrace modernity. Going to high school a block away from the tower, I was insipired by the lightshow on its side on dark winter evenings. After the november 2015 attacks, it felt reassuring to see that obelisk lit up in Bleu Blanc Rouge while walking to the metro station. It meant that we didn't have to fear, that we weren't willing to become a relic of the past, and that even through our worst days, we never considered giving up. All in all, it's part of the city and brings a touch of fresh air to an otherwise boring looking skyline.
It's too bad they didn't take inspiration from American Pre was architecture. A Crystler Building or Tribune tower would look pretty cool in Paris IMO.
1:31 Historical Montparnasse station (famous for the steam train crash falling from the first floor in 1895) was very very too small. Building the new Montparnasse station was a necessity (even if it's a brutalist nightmare). But maybe it was possible to save the old building.
True, I think no one objected to building a new station or at least in hindsight everyone agrees it was very much necessary. I am not sure how successful the rest of the development was though.
@@MindTheMap IMHO, the tower is the less ugly thing in the development made in the sixties in Montparnasse. The shopping mall is a deserted no mans land, and the station and the two long buildings behind itare very very ugly. And the station is not easy or stressless to use, and access to the metro is a labyrinthic nightmare. When I lived in Tours, I used to take slower train to arrive in Austerlitz station and avoid TGV going to Montparnasse.
@@reuillois Funny you mention that. I took the TGV from Tours to Paris once and I remember the station being confusing as well. Exiting the station the area around it seemed a bit lifeless, especially the sad square right at the foot of Tour Montparnasse.
I may be crazy, but I have always loved this monolith in Paris. It’s so striking and bold to me (never mind that I have a view of it from my bathroom window). Perhaps its majestic stance comes from the fact that it sits alone, unobstructed, unopposed, from the rest of the City’s skyscrape. Whatever it is, I love its presence.
Like a flemish Beffroi. I like the idea. I live in Rennes (and formerly in Tours) and when I arrive in Paris (by train at the Montparnasse station), i don't dislike the tower. It's imposing, and it's look like travellers are really arriving into a Capital city.
In Oslo Postgirobygget is visible from the train station and never ceases to impress me and Oslo Plaza is an excellent landmark for navigating the city centre.
Because this tower is terrible and ugly af. Everyone hates it, only a handful of people like it. At best, people tolerate it. I pray every day so it gets demolished once and for all. We don't need it. We have too many offices. We need more parks.
I am an admirer of the Tour Montparnasse as it is, having visited in 2011 and thinking its International Modernist form and materials were very cool. It’s not the most interesting skyscraper out there, but it is a good example of its era and pretty admirable for that fact. Any beautiful world city needs buildings of contrasting appearance and from different eras to give a nuanced sense of its architectural heritage and of its social history. I believe it can be a terrible mistake to refurbish landmark mid-20th Century structures like the Tour Montparnasse to make them fit with our contemporary aesthetic sensibilities and to make more money for a privileged few. Retrofitting of internal services, better insulation, etc. is vital but external refurbishment only serves to erase its architectural significance and lead to potential disappointment in the future when it is realised what has been lost. I am from Sydney, where sadly we’ve not been very kind to our mid-Century buildings (madly retrofitting several of our 1950s-1970s skyscrapers with varying success) and even relatively recently the Tao Gophers-designed state-owned Brutalist Sirius social housing complex adjacent to the Sydney Harbour Bridge was sold to developers and its appearance forever changed to transform it into luxury apartments while its former public housing residents were moved 30km away. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius_Building This is but one example of when a pure architectural form/silhouette of the 20th Century loses out to the worst excesses of 21st Century adaptive reuse under the guise of “beautifying” the architecture of the city and creating nee amenity (…for the rich, of course). In reality, it serves more to expand commercial space and the amount of luxury housing in CBD or CBD-adjacent locations while neglecting the need for affordable and social housing. Even the slight expansion of public spaces is fraught as where this does occur, the designed flow typically serves to funnel people through shopping arcades and malls (which are not the public domain) to spend money rather than to linger and enjoy for their own sake as traditional parks, squares and wide pedestrian promenades. I had hoped Paris wouldn’t be making the same mistakes as in English-speaking cities where plans akin to what will occur at Tour Montparnasse have not turned out as well. Vive la différence! _”OMG!” to the bizarre response of the boorishly arrogant person below who feels the need to police others’ TH-cam comments in the guise of an academic exercise (???) to beyond the point of cringe. Talk about lack of self-awareness._
@@samhodgkinson7378Good points and new information, thank you. How about a link to the Sydney Snafu and how about helping your audience by chucking in a paragraph or four so that we get a chance to breathe‽ Please.
@samhodgkinson7378 Then prithee kind sir, beg par'n for the mention of it, do thyself the favour of redirecting thine apparent ire to an arguably more beneficial trip down "let's give the sanctimonious bar steward's suggestion a go" lane. We win by more readily and readably getting your drift all the swifter and you win by having your bon mots more widely and fully appreciated. Probs. Can't hurt to try it now, can it‽
@@JP_TaVeryMuch Doubling down on the insufferably overbearing arrogance really adds a certain “je ne sais wtf?” to any online discussion. You went off topic and picked on a fellow commenter’s formatting (???) for what? It’s a comment section on a TH-cam video, not an English language pissing contest. Numpty is as numpty does. What a 🤡.
Because they found a way to put it between old haussnanian apartments and it looks bad. They also promised to redo the façade to modernise it since 30 years. It was never done. The Color and the shape are not modern, just Art Deco from the 60s-70s. Destroy it. Or redo it. But even if you eventually redo it, I think it is not in the right place. Destroying it is better. I don’t understand why it is a landmark. The skyscrapers at La Défense or in big cities of the anglosphere are better. What did the architect think? I do not get it as a foreigner and I try to bypass it instead of going there. Haussmannian is better than Victorian but it does not allow that marriage skyscraper / old residential buildings. Also I like big skyscrapers standing next to some water such as London or nyc but the Seine is narrow and brown. The feeling is bad. Get rid of it. ❤
Well first of all, of course - the French will complain about everything and anything they can. But also, of all the buildings you could build there... they chose the most uninspired, ugly architecture they could possibly come up with.
Rather than refurbishment, I think it should be demolished. It really does spoil the historical city scape of Paris and the La Défense business district, just outside of Paris proper, being so well connected with the historical centre would provide easily enough space for the businesses in the Tour Montparnasse.
The only skyscraper in Paris.? Paris literally got La Defense. Bigger and more impressive skyscrapers than ANY USA city except maybe TWO. NYC and Chicago. It doesn't matter if La Defense is Paris metro area. It's absolutely regarded to be located in Paris (metro area).
La defence is a district far away from Paris and it’s medieval/modern/neo-classic and haussmanian monuments. If you have ever been to the city and even in the 3d map in the video you can see how it’s basically impossible to see La Défense from let’s say the Sainte Chapelle. Tour Montparnasse causes anger because it’s in the middle of the city and clashes with it. I’d like to add that the perspective between the Arc de Triomphe and the Arc de La Défense is well thought of and looks good imo.
@lepastresgentil9467 "Metro area", go learn about it on Google. Paris itself got slightly above the 2 million people, but Paris metro area got 12-13 million people. Well La Defense IS in that metro area of Paris. That's like saying suburbs of Los Angeles are not in that city. They are. There's no discontinuity between center of Paris and La Defense. You just drive from urban point A to urban point B.
@@lepastresgentil9467 There's no need to even visit the Paris or any other city. It's enough to watch some TH-cam driving video throughout the Paris and connect the dots. It's obvious ENOUGH. La Defense is HUGE and it's VERY visible from the certain points of central Paris. Even if it really is far away.
Please stop with sacrebleu. No one says that. Most french people don’t even know what it means. And don’t get me started on the « oui oui baguette » non sense…
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Is the Tour Montparnasse as bad as most Parisians think? Do the renovation plans look promising to you?
Also, consider subscribing to help me reach 20.000 subscribers! -Lukas
It is a lovely building. They can ship it to Chicago :) Eiffel Tower 2.0!
Though, it seems very out of place. Seriously. Not perfect now but consider 200 years from now. I dunno. Much love from Chicagoland to the French people ❤❤❤🇺🇸🇫🇷
"The best place to see Paris is from the top of the Maine-Montparnasse tower, because you cannot see it from there"...
And no line too.
Eiffel Tower Box is crazy
Reminds of how people called the world trade centers as the boxes the Empire State Building arrived in because people really hated its design at the time lol
@@ARBUZIK.dudkinbut then people began to like it in the late 70s,80s,90s until it got destroyed in 2001 💔
@@ARBUZIK.dudkinThey were as ugly as sin.
In paris we say the best view to see Paris it's on the roof of Montparnasse tower... Because we don't see it.
But in Paris and in France we never say Sacrebleu, it's what USA movies think French says but it's wrong, no one say sacrebleu
Real, if you say sacrebleu you’ll either look autistic or like a foreigner
watch the whole vid before commenting lol
sacréblue
Do you know where the word (and the belief) comes from? I‘d be interested
It is not usual now, but has been used for a long time. It was an alternative to sacredieu judged less profane. Eugène Labiche used it in the 19th century in one of his comedies for example.
Fun fact: The headquarters of the International Union of Architects is located in the Tour Montparnasse.
French comedians have wit.
the same m*rons still praising le corbusier like he shat gold.
3:45 The same joke was originally made about the Eiffel Tower.
I once read that the Eiffel Tower was almost torn down at one point. It's hard to imagine Paris without it to be honest.
@@MindTheMap It was the plan even before the construction. It was supposed to be a temporary construction for the universal exposition of 1889 with a 20 years concession. There was a lot of protests around that time because people thought the tower was ugly. Most homeowners with apartments with direct view on the tower were also thinking that the tower presence in sight would decrease the value of their property (of course quite the opposite happened over time). They kept it because its height was extremely useful for telecommunications. And after that, the tower was already the symbol of Paris, it was out of question to dismantle it anymore. Also, the joke you mentioned was indeed originally ment for the Eiffel tower as mentioned by @maxfi878. It was the French writer Guy de Maupassant's answer, who notoriously hated the tower but was having lunch on its first floor regularly, when asked why.
They same thing about the Palace of Culture in Warsaw.
Yes but 20 years after its construction nobody wanted to destroy it and the Eiffel had a lot of fans from the very beginning (there are always people against anything)
Whereas almost anybody likes the Montparnasse tower 50 years after its completion, except some modernist architects
In fact Parisians just got used to it but there wouldn’t be any successful petitions or big protests if the tower was about to be torn down, believe me
It’s just a tower among others, you have plenty of similar buildings in the business district of La Defense and in another places around the city center
@@MindTheMapthe Eiffel tower WAS supposed to be vorn down, as it was originally ,ade for the universal exposition and was not supposed to stay after
The joke about the tower being the best place to see Paris because you can't see the tower is actually the same joke from the TV show "Absolutely Fabulous" that I absolutely adore, but also can't remember which episode it's from.
Saffy says it to Eddie
I did not expect to see a 1992 BBC sitcom referenced in the comments but here we are. The plot summary makes it sound like it inspired Emily in Paris to some extend.
@@MindTheMap the joke is inspired from the saying of Maupassant, initially about the Eiffel Tower
In 1969 I was studying architecture at the Ecole des beaux Arts in Paris. The director for the planning of Paris lectured us about the future development concept. It was to put high rise office blocks over the four train stations. That way the workers would take the train into Paris, an elevator to their office and reverse the process at night. I asked; wouldn’t it make more sense to build the offices out in the suburbs and skip the daily train rides. I was roundly criticized. First for having an American accent and second for being unable to understand French Urban Planning Theory. Ultimately, the gigantic offices over the train stations were abandoned.
@@larrysorenson4789 le plus étonnant est que le quartier de La Défense avait déjà commencé son développement à cette époque donc je ne comprends pas pourquoi cette tour était nécessaire
En réalité derrière la façade de rationalité technocratique ce projet obéissait à la mode idéologique de l’époque : il fallait faire des tours pour montrer qu’on était une ville moderne (Lyon et Nantes ont eu la leur dans le quartier des gares à la même époque)
En fait on peut avoir des zones de bureaux sans avoir besoin de tours d’autres quartiers de Paris le démontrent amplement. La forme architecturale de la tour est en réalité plus souvent un choix idéologique et esthétique qu’une nécessité pratique il suffit de voir les centres de beaucoup de villes nord américaines où des tours côtoient d’immenses zones de parking sous utilisées
La tour n’est pas simplement un immeuble de grande hauteur mais une forme architecturale très spécifique (en réalité selon moi une grande partie de Manhattan est composée d’immeubles de grande hauteur pas de tours)
Je ne suis pas contre dans l’absolu. Ensuite se pose la question esthétique : si on avait construit une tour art deco ou de style beaux arts comme on en trouve encore à New York je pense que ça n’aurait pas suscité un tel rejet
want to talk about urban planning in america ? :D
land of the empty malls and derelict casinos
@ wow! You must have spent years here to be able to sum up the home of 350 million people so succinctly. And since you are certain that your assessment is correct there is nothing scholarly to be said other than take comfort in your ignorance. Reality may overwhelm you.
@ sorry for taking so long to get back to you my friend. I will reply in order.
In my estimation the tower was the result of bureaucratic ego or even that of one highly placed person. That is probably the only way in which such s thing would possibly have been allowed.
Very tall buildings must, by their nature, exhibit current technology. Unlike the Eiffel Tower where the structure is the elegant architecture, a box may not inspire interest or awe. And so the architectural designers labored intently to discover an appearance that satisfied their aesthetic. From the macro standpoint it is clearly the anthesis of the Eiffel. It is a solid black obelisk as the foil to the expressive transparency of the Eiffel. Controversy abounds.
Its “architecture” can only be seen on the micro scale, that is the period details that gradually unfold as the interiors are explored.
The desire to be a modern city nay be misplaced. The world need not appear modern if it functions well. It is conceivable that modernity in an ancient urban context is best confined to specific zones. The case for total integration of a modern style into an ancient aesthetic lies in the Lemans Cathedral. It’s construction took centuries and during that time the architecture of trend changed. Ultimately, it has portions from many different architectural and structural styles. Yet rather than being a cacophony of competing vernaculars, everything melds together beautifully into one whole that can be appreciated even more when its parts are studied. So an argument may be made for tasteful integration of old and new. In this instance the controversy will remain for many years as “taste” is debated.
Personally I prefer artistic integration over an overt assault on the senses.
To be continued.
Larry in the Arizona Desert
@ je crois que vous êtes français 😄 pardon
Tour Montparnasse: I'm the only skyscraper in Paris
Skyscrapers in La Defense: Am I a joke to you?
La Defense is not Paris !!!
While it might be considered somewhat of a technicality, La Défense is 3 kilometers west of Paris city limits and part of the Département Hauts-de-Seine.
@@MindTheMap You are wrong, while La Défense is not in Paris, there are skyscrapers within the municipality of Paris. Look up Tours Duo or Tribunal de Paris (built in the last 10 years)
@@ErickHumboldt yes, Paris. The only city on earth that doesn't want to admit its fat and does not consider its true borders to be its true borders. A woman of cities. It is Paris, anyone who says otherwise is bullshitting himself. How do you go to la Défense? Hauts-de-Seine métro? No. Its by Paris métro.
@ oh my god 😂 your reasoning makes no sense it means that all the towns in the suburbs of Paris are itself Paris you are totally ridiculous
Ok the new one looks nice. It will look nice in contrast with a sunny blue sky.
The black glass is an eyesore...
Meanwhile in London: You get an ugly modern and soulless skyscraper! You get an ugly modern and soulless skyscraper! EVERYONE GETS AN UGLY MODERN AND SOULLESS SKYSCRAPER!
Those skyscrapers have ruined the charm of the historical centre. They should’ve just built them all in other districts like they’re doing in canary wharf
@@yourfriendlyneighbourhoods8202 the historical Centre was already destroyed from ww2. It was inevitable that they would construct skyscrapers with that opportunity.
Oversimplified reference
Same thing in Berlin, I HATE it
Don't forget the non-skyscraper Barbican Centre. It is just a sort of wart.
It's a disgusting obelisk of netherite. That's why.
1st time I saw this tower was in SimCity 4, immediately fell in love with the bold yet somehow elegant design. I remember asking a friend as well as my uncle, when they travelled to paris, to take photos of it, which they did :D
As a Parisian, I am not familiar with this controversy, however George Pompidou was a very controversial president who tried to plough through Paris with urban freeways. Going against this plan required a lot of pressure from locals and politicians, and still today we are recovering from his watered down highway construction by demolishing and repurposing redundant highway entrances and exits, car tunnels etc. It's likely that the fact Pompidou pushed for the construction of this tower is why it was so heavily opposed, and not so much because it is "ugly", but that is just my opinion.
Furthermore, most parisians don't daddle around anymore because we are mostly underground taking the metro / RER or out looking for a store or some green space, not gazing at our own city on the seat of a ferry or atop a high place. It is tourists who complain about the tower I imagine. But Paris isn't (just) a museum, it's a real city with a serious housing affordability problem. Tourists should come here, but their opinion of this tower being ugly is not important...
Thank you for the local insight. A good thing then that Pompidou's freeway plans were not realized in the end.
Building skyscrapers won't resolve the housing crisis. Skyscrapers are for the rich to invest. Their actual occupancy isn't very high. They're also expensive to maintain and supply cuz you need to move up.
Purely practical thinking has already bulldozed infinite acres of historic development in favour of freeways and parking spaces.
Cities become less and less friendly, they turn into places where you have to rather than want to be.
You should appreciate the beauty of Paris. It's fragile
@@ilghiz Yeah, 10% vacancy rate is suuuuch a high number... I don't know if you've lived near Paris, but it's rather jarring to take an unreliable RER 1 hour in, 1 hour out everyday. It would be nice to have the option to live for cheap where I want to be. But if you made appartments cheaper (turn luxury appartments into "low cost"), you'll just saturate the housing supply, and the auctionning process will be a nightmare. You can't solve the issue of housing affordability without aknowledging the effect of supply and demand.
Sacrebleu : 17th century oath, never used today.
The Montparnasse is going to be revamped.
2:42 You learn sthg every day, thank you. I was equating the fuss stirred up by this block with the fall on your sword fate of the Euston arch in London and the sea change thereafter.
The Seven storey structure stricture at law in Paris and the dropping of many plans to tear down our building heritage in the Royaume Uni.
Apparently they increased it to twelve storeys last year but I wish that we had one here in London. Even the archaïc lines of sight of Saint Paul's have been broken recently and they say that there's over two hundred skyscrapers in construction or with permission just waiting to scar Mary Poppins's cityscape!
London is truly confusing with their sightlines and St. Pauls, considering for example how far away 20 Fenchurch Street is from the cathedral. I was also surprised that they now have basically hidden the Swiss Tower (the Gherkin) behind a wall of skyscrapers. Will be interesting to watch how London's skyline develops.
It seems like the biggest issue is just that it obviously isn't designed to be completely alone like it is. If there were other buildings nearby of similar heights, it wouldn't stand out nearly as badly. Any building that much taller than its surroundings it's always going to look out of place.
1:25 I wonder if in a corner of the architect's mind there were any inklings of a nod to the PanAm building in New York over Grand Central station?
Good point! The context (replacing a train station/terminal) as well as the look of the building are pretty similar!
Ich war auch mal oben. Die Aussicht ist wirklich toll
Isnt the box joke just a re-hash of the Twin Towers being the boxes that the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings came in?
Also i went up the Tour in 2015, the view was great, it was just clouds as far as the eye could see because it was super dense fog that day....
The Twin Towers and the Tour Montparnasse were both finished in 1973, so not sure which side of the Atlantic came up with the joke first...
And we had that same joke in Seattle, when a similar black-box skyscraper was built: the box the Space Needle came in. Now, of course, you can barely see that skyscraper for the forest of subsequent towers downtown!
@@amfm889 Seems like a truly global joke then!
The most controversial building in France would be the palace of Versailles, or some other building like the Bastille, even the Eifell tower was controversal in the beginning.
As a Parisian born and raised, I never understood the hate against it... I love ma Tour Montparnasse, it's vintage, it's odd, and yeah it sticks out like a sore thumb but that's what I love about it
On a dit les mêmes choses de la tour eiffel lors de sa construction...
ça faut 50 ans que cette immodice défigure notre capitale, je crois qu'on peut se permettre un verdict.
La Tour Eiffel is beautiful whatever you say. La Tour Montparnasse is just a box, a naked parallelopiped. It would look nice in New York or Shanghai among similar boxes creating a composition together with them. In Paris it just stands out like a pimple on the face. If it were a bit more decorative, transparent, were art deco or art nouveau, it'd raise less controversy. But it's a bare box.
I'm french and I didn't even know of the existence of this building so that was pretty interesting
You live on the Moon ?
@gsbeak nope just never been to Paris
La Defense in Paris has a lot of skyscrapers though.
Unfortunately from la Tour you can still see Sacré-Coeur, the ugliest building on the Right Bank. You might like to do an episode on the construction of that monstrosity. Try reading Zola's novel "Paris".
For saying this i challenge you to a duel. Dawn. Pistols.
Breathtaking views from every floor tho!
That sky garden in London is really crap in the winter. The space is too large an airy to heat properly. A Christmas party where you have to keep your winter coat on is not fun!
Unfortunaltely Paris has many skyscrapers and the 13th arrondissement for instance was completely ravaged by hi-rise towers.
Tour Montparnasse is not at all the only scrycrapper in Paris. Hyatt regency tower? The Olympiades neibourghood? Beaugrenelle ? The zamansky tower? The "tours duo"?
Not to mention the big elephant in the room that is La Défense, the most dense concentration of skyscrapers in Europe, less than a kilometer away from the Bois de Boulogne. Yes it's not in Central "Paris" but that doesn't change the fact that it exists.
fun fact the eiffel tower was originally going to be a temporary building and not so fun fact due to rust we might loose it soon
The last joke was actually originally about the Eiffel tower and was said by a famous french writer.
Can you tell me the Background music?
With this Video it’s sounds amazing
Retrofitting would mean when the brew is salty they are going to add more sugar.
Not only Paris but also everybody, là Tour Montparnasse est une horreur à vue d’œil.
Literally every goddamned building in Paris is controversial. Its part of the building process i think by this point.
French do is good at city planning. These street of mid-rise building is more friendly than that of ieNewYork.
As a Parisian, I can't disagree more. Montparnasse is a great building because of its boldness, because it's the only one in its kind (alongside to a lower extent Tour Zamansky). The contrast it has with the lowrise appartements buildings all around Paris shows that it's not a city of the past. Conservation of landmarks is important, but at some point, you start becoming a museum instead of a place of greatness if you don't embrace modernity.
Going to high school a block away from the tower, I was insipired by the lightshow on its side on dark winter evenings.
After the november 2015 attacks, it felt reassuring to see that obelisk lit up in Bleu Blanc Rouge while walking to the metro station. It meant that we didn't have to fear, that we weren't willing to become a relic of the past, and that even through our worst days, we never considered giving up.
All in all, it's part of the city and brings a touch of fresh air to an otherwise boring looking skyline.
This is one question where there is no need to ask 'why'. It's obvious.
Parisians hate that but I don't. Love it so much.
It's too bad they didn't take inspiration from American Pre was architecture. A Crystler Building or Tribune tower would look pretty cool in Paris IMO.
What about La Defense? It has many skyscrapers.
La Defense is "outside" Paris ;)
1:31 Historical Montparnasse station (famous for the steam train crash falling from the first floor in 1895) was very very too small. Building the new Montparnasse station was a necessity (even if it's a brutalist nightmare). But maybe it was possible to save the old building.
True, I think no one objected to building a new station or at least in hindsight everyone agrees it was very much necessary. I am not sure how successful the rest of the development was though.
@@MindTheMap IMHO, the tower is the less ugly thing in the development made in the sixties in Montparnasse. The shopping mall is a deserted no mans land, and the station and the two long buildings behind itare very very ugly. And the station is not easy or stressless to use, and access to the metro is a labyrinthic nightmare. When I lived in Tours, I used to take slower train to arrive in Austerlitz station and avoid TGV going to Montparnasse.
@@reuillois Funny you mention that. I took the TGV from Tours to Paris once and I remember the station being confusing as well. Exiting the station the area around it seemed a bit lifeless, especially the sad square right at the foot of Tour Montparnasse.
the main problem of this tower is that there's a lot of absestos in it.
kinda looks like that one Cities Skylines tower
I may be crazy, but I have always loved this monolith in Paris. It’s so striking and bold to me (never mind that I have a view of it from my bathroom window). Perhaps its majestic stance comes from the fact that it sits alone, unobstructed, unopposed, from the rest of the City’s skyscrape. Whatever it is, I love its presence.
There have been quite a lot of fans of Tour Montparnasse here in the comments so your definitely not alone with your opinion!
Also you must live in a great location! Hopefully your rent is still reasonable though.
Agreed. It's there: it doesn't care. ❤
Like a flemish Beffroi. I like the idea. I live in Rennes (and formerly in Tours) and when I arrive in Paris (by train at the Montparnasse station), i don't dislike the tower. It's imposing, and it's look like travellers are really arriving into a Capital city.
In Oslo Postgirobygget is visible from the train station and never ceases to impress me and Oslo Plaza is an excellent landmark for navigating the city centre.
It’s funny because nowadays nobody says “Sacrebeu”
Because this tower is terrible and ugly af. Everyone hates it, only a handful of people like it. At best, people tolerate it.
I pray every day so it gets demolished once and for all. We don't need it. We have too many offices. We need more parks.
before it;s removed they planning to make it uglier.
Bros more german than germany itself
Wish London would have banned tall buildings in the city. Completely ruined the skyline.
I am an admirer of the Tour Montparnasse as it is, having visited in 2011 and thinking its International Modernist form and materials were very cool. It’s not the most interesting skyscraper out there, but it is a good example of its era and pretty admirable for that fact.
Any beautiful world city needs buildings of contrasting appearance and from different eras to give a nuanced sense of its architectural heritage and of its social history.
I believe it can be a terrible mistake to refurbish landmark mid-20th Century structures like the Tour Montparnasse to make them fit with our contemporary aesthetic sensibilities and to make more money for a privileged few. Retrofitting of internal services, better insulation, etc. is vital but external refurbishment only serves to erase its architectural significance and lead to potential disappointment in the future when it is realised what has been lost.
I am from Sydney, where sadly we’ve not been very kind to our mid-Century buildings (madly retrofitting several of our 1950s-1970s skyscrapers with varying success) and even relatively recently the Tao Gophers-designed state-owned Brutalist Sirius social housing complex adjacent to the Sydney Harbour Bridge was sold to developers and its appearance forever changed to transform it into luxury apartments while its former public housing residents were moved 30km away.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius_Building
This is but one example of when a pure architectural form/silhouette of the 20th Century loses out to the worst excesses of 21st Century adaptive reuse under the guise of “beautifying” the architecture of the city and creating nee amenity (…for the rich, of course). In reality, it serves more to expand commercial space and the amount of luxury housing in CBD or CBD-adjacent locations while neglecting the need for affordable and social housing.
Even the slight expansion of public spaces is fraught as where this does occur, the designed flow typically serves to funnel people through shopping arcades and malls (which are not the public domain) to spend money rather than to linger and enjoy for their own sake as traditional parks, squares and wide pedestrian promenades.
I had hoped Paris wouldn’t be making the same mistakes as in English-speaking cities where plans akin to what will occur at Tour Montparnasse have not turned out as well. Vive la différence!
_”OMG!” to the bizarre response of the boorishly arrogant person below who feels the need to police others’ TH-cam comments in the guise of an academic exercise (???) to beyond the point of cringe. Talk about lack of self-awareness._
@@samhodgkinson7378Good points and new information, thank you.
How about a link to the Sydney Snafu and how about helping your audience by chucking in a paragraph or four so that we get a chance to breathe‽
Please.
Mid century architecture looks ugly it was made to insult previous heritage and doesn't deserve to be preserved
@samhodgkinson7378 Then prithee kind sir, beg par'n for the mention of it, do thyself the favour of redirecting thine apparent ire to an arguably more beneficial trip down "let's give the sanctimonious bar steward's suggestion a go" lane.
We win by more readily and readably getting your drift all the swifter and you win by having your bon mots more widely and fully appreciated. Probs.
Can't hurt to try it now, can it‽
@@samhodgkinson7378 Bravo ragazzo!
@@JP_TaVeryMuch Doubling down on the insufferably overbearing arrogance really adds a certain “je ne sais wtf?” to any online discussion. You went off topic and picked on a fellow commenter’s formatting (???) for what? It’s a comment section on a TH-cam video, not an English language pissing contest. Numpty is as numpty does. What a 🤡.
First, it's not the "only skyscraper" of Paris. Second, the Eiffel Tower is 330 m high, not 312.
Where the hell are the others then? 😂 I live there and I haven’t seen them 😂
And yes the tower is 312m high, 330 is with the antenna…
Paris known for protecting her city? Haha... No way. Two minutes talking with Haussmann and you'll just become depressed.
3:45 we say that about Olivia Star in Gdańsk.
Because they found a way to put it between old haussnanian apartments and it looks bad. They also promised to redo the façade to modernise it since 30 years. It was never done. The Color and the shape are not modern, just Art Deco from the 60s-70s. Destroy it. Or redo it. But even if you eventually redo it, I think it is not in the right place. Destroying it is better. I don’t understand why it is a landmark. The skyscrapers at La Défense or in big cities of the anglosphere are better. What did the architect think? I do not get it as a foreigner and I try to bypass it instead of going there.
Haussmannian is better than Victorian but it does not allow that marriage skyscraper / old residential buildings.
Also I like big skyscrapers standing next to some water such as London or nyc but the Seine is narrow and brown. The feeling is bad. Get rid of it. ❤
It's not the only skyscraper of Paris. Please check your data.
am I blind
I did not see that in Paris even from Eiffel tower
deutscher akzent :D
Well first of all, of course - the French will complain about everything and anything they can. But also, of all the buildings you could build there... they chose the most uninspired, ugly architecture they could possibly come up with.
As a parisian, i really like this tower
An ugly eyesore....it ruins the beautiful city.
I visited Paris two years ago and I liked the Montparnasse because everybody pretended to hate him. I always like what other people hate.
It's so ugly. Pretty self explanatory.
Stuck out like a sour thumb
If Parisians hate that tower, it is now my favourite tower in France.
Ιt's a really ugly skyscraper!
Rather than refurbishment, I think it should be demolished. It really does spoil the historical city scape of Paris and the La Défense business district, just outside of Paris proper, being so well connected with the historical centre would provide easily enough space for the businesses in the Tour Montparnasse.
but first for some refurbishment, while it's still there.
The only skyscraper in Paris.? Paris literally got La Defense. Bigger and more impressive skyscrapers than ANY USA city except maybe TWO. NYC and Chicago. It doesn't matter if La Defense is Paris metro area. It's absolutely regarded to be located in Paris (metro area).
La defence is a district far away from Paris and it’s medieval/modern/neo-classic and haussmanian monuments. If you have ever been to the city and even in the 3d map in the video you can see how it’s basically impossible to see La Défense from let’s say the Sainte Chapelle. Tour Montparnasse causes anger because it’s in the middle of the city and clashes with it. I’d like to add that the perspective between the Arc de Triomphe and the Arc de La Défense is well thought of and looks good imo.
@lepastresgentil9467 "Metro area", go learn about it on Google. Paris itself got slightly above the 2 million people, but Paris metro area got 12-13 million people. Well La Defense IS in that metro area of Paris. That's like saying suburbs of Los Angeles are not in that city. They are. There's no discontinuity between center of Paris and La Defense. You just drive from urban point A to urban point B.
@@lepastresgentil9467 There's no need to even visit the Paris or any other city. It's enough to watch some TH-cam driving video throughout the Paris and connect the dots. It's obvious ENOUGH. La Defense is HUGE and it's VERY visible from the certain points of central Paris. Even if it really is far away.
Please stop with sacrebleu. No one says that. Most french people don’t even know what it means.
And don’t get me started on the « oui oui baguette » non sense…
the term went to america in the seventeenth century, it keeps comming back.