Paris Futur

I love cities and architecture and though I have to admit that I have a rather particular taste, the fact that I consider Paris as the most beautiful place on earth does not deviate so much from standard liking. Anyway, apart from my obvious fascination with historical Paris, I find also an enormous delight in modern Paris. One could think it boils down just to La Defense, but there are quite a few more interesting planned, new, recent or relatively recent, modern developments in Paris. For example I pretty much appreciate the Biblioteque Francois Mitterrand, the modern, mid-rise buildings in the Rive Gauche and Batignoles ZACS (notice also that both ZACs are crowned up with one/two skyscrappers) and of course, the so disliked Tour Montparnasse (it seems like years ago it ranked second in a web poll about the ugliest buildings in the world). I absolutely love how majestic it looks isolated in the middle of classic, Hausmannian Paris, a reference point visible from anywhere in the city. I admit that its dark, "sad" exterior is not its strong point, so finding out that the tour is going to be fully revamped has been pretty nice news (moreover considering that in the last decade several conservative candidates to the mayor's office had proposed to demolish it...). You can read here that Montparnasse will get a vegetalized, transparent facade, and will even grow 18 meters thanks to a greenhouse on its top!

Searching more information about it I've come across an excellent site referencing some of the main new architectural projects in Paris, Paris Futur. I already knew about many of the projects shown there, but it's really nice and convenient to have them listed together in the same place. La Defense continues to thrive, with the construction of 2 new skyscrappers already started (Tour Hekla and Jardins de l'Arche), and other 2 projects almost ready to start (tours Sisters and the new headquarters for Total). On the other side, high rise buildings in Paris intramuros continue to be controversial to say the least, and the opposition of different groups of rednecks continues to hinder the construction of the amazing Tour Triangle. There's one project that is not mentioned in ParisFutur but that has managed to defeat the "Anti-Tour" opposition and is well under construction, Les Tours Duo by Jean Nouvelle. Right in the border with Ivry sur Seine, but still inside the Peripherique!