Tour Les Poissons
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Tour Les Poissons, known in corporate real estate as Tour Ciel, is a 42-
storey A storey (British English) or story (American English) is any level part of a building with a floor that could be used by people (for living, work, storage, recreation, etc.). Plurals for the word are ''storeys'' (UK) and ''stories'' (US). T ...
,
skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...
located west of
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
in
Courbevoie Courbevoie () is a commune located in the Hauts-de-Seine Department of the Île-de-France region of France. It is in the suburbs of the city of Paris, from the center of Paris. The centre of Courbevoie is situated from the city limits of Par ...
,
Hauts-de-Seine Hauts-de-Seine (; ) is a Departments of France, département in the Île-de-France Regions of France, region, Northern France. It covers Paris's western inner Banlieue, suburbs. It is bordered by Paris, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne to the e ...
,
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
. While often grouped with the many office towers of
La Défense La Défense () is a major business district in France, located west of the city limits of Paris. It is part of the Paris metropolitan area in the Île-de-France region, located in the department of Hauts-de-Seine in the communes of Courbevoie, ...
business district A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...
, it is actually located half a mile to the northeast in a smaller mixed use complex called Centre Charras, of which it remains the highest building. Completed in 1970, it has occasionally been described as France's first true skyscraper, although Tour Perret in
Amiens Amiens (English: or ; ; pcd, Anmien, or ) is a city and commune in northern France, located north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in the region of Hauts-de-France. In 2021, the population of ...
is more frequently cited. Between its inauguration and that of
Tour Montparnasse Tour Maine-Montparnasse (Maine-Montparnasse Tower), also commonly named Tour Montparnasse, is a office skyscraper located in the Montparnasse area of Paris, France. Constructed from 1969 to 1973, it was the tallest skyscraper in France until 2 ...
in 1973, Tour Les Poissons was France's highest building designed for occupancy (which excludes antennas or observation towers such as the
Eiffel Tower The Eiffel Tower ( ; french: links=yes, tour Eiffel ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Locally nicknamed "'' ...
).


Design

The French word "poisson" means fish, but it is also used—as is the case here—for the astrological sign
Pisces Pisces may refer to: * Pisces, an obsolete (because of land vertebrates) taxonomic superclass including all fish * Pisces (astrology), an astrological sign * Pisces (constellation), a constellation **Pisces Overdensity, an overdensity of stars in ...
. Tour Poissons was built as part of an ensemble called Zodiaque, whose residential buildings were inspired, in name and in some cases design, by signs of the zodiac. The design of Tour Les Poissons includes a white tower joined with a smaller black tower. Together, they are supposed to evoke the motif of two interlocked fishes traditionally associated with the Pisces sign. It was envisioned stricty as a housing tower, but security regulations of the time capped the number of floors that could be used for residential purposes to thirty, so the rest was converted to offices. The first two floors, as well as the upper ten, hold a medical center and various corporate offices. The intermediate floors hold residential apartments. The upper office floors are recognizable thanks to their larger windows. The building used to be topped by a spire, in the form of a cylindrical concrete barometer that glowed green or blue to indicate atmospheric pressure. It was removed in October 2006.


Renovation and rebrand

Following the departure of longtime owner and occupant
AXA Axa S.A. (styled as ''AXA'' or GIG in the Middle East) is a French multinational insurance company. The head office is in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. It also provides investment management and other financial services. The Ax ...
, the office floors within the building were renovated in 2007–08 by new owners Westbrook Investments and architect Xavier Sterlin. The renovated space was reintroduced to the market under the upscale name "Tour Ciel" (English: Sky Tower), in an attempt to align its image with the skyscrapers of the more prestigious La Défense district. The residential section retained the "Tour Poissons" moniker. Among its tenants—as of 2022—are the French headquarters of TÜV Rheinland and
Borealis Borealis (Latin for ''northern'' or ''of the north'') may refer to: Astronomy * Borealis Basin or North Polar Basin, a basin on the planet Mars * Borealis quadrangle, an area on the planet Mercury ** Borealis Planitia, a basin within the quadran ...
, as well as the Ecole supérieure de l'immobilier (English: Superior School of Real Estate).


UAP/AXA Towers

Between 1970 and 2006, Tour Les Poissons' façade bore a large sign for insurance company UAP (later AXA), which co-developed the Zodiaque project in a
public–private partnership A public–private partnership (PPP, 3P, or P3) is a long-term arrangement between a government and private sector institutions.Hodge, G. A and Greve, C. (2007), Public–Private Partnerships: An International Performance Review, Public Administ ...
with the city of Courbevoie, and stored its computer servers on the tower's office floors. For this reason, Tour Les Poissons came to be known as Tour UAP or Tour AXA in the Charras neighborhood, although that was not its official name. Internally at UAP, Les Poissons was simply called Tour Charras. In 1970, UAP commissioned architect Pierre Dufau to build a second, taller skyscraper based on the same structural design at La Défense, which opened in 1974 under the name Tour Assur. It became UAP's main headquarters, and therefore the building most widely associated with the names Tour UAP and Tour AXA. Between 1972 and 1994, there was yet another Tour UAP in the
Part-Dieu Part-Dieu () is an area of Lyon Metropolis. It is also the second largest tertiary district in France, after La Défense in Greater Paris, with over 1,150,000 m2 of office and service space, along with 45,000 service sector jobs, 2,500 compan ...
district of
Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...
, but it was vacated in 1994 and razed in 2010 to be replaced with
Tour Incity The Tour Incity is a skyscraper office in Lyon, France. The building was completed in 2015 in the business district of La Part-Dieu, at the intersection of the Cours Lafayette (main entrance) and Garibaldi Street to replace the obsolete UAP tower ...
.


See also

*
La Défense La Défense () is a major business district in France, located west of the city limits of Paris. It is part of the Paris metropolitan area in the Île-de-France region, located in the department of Hauts-de-Seine in the communes of Courbevoie, ...
* List of tallest structures in Paris


References


External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Les Poissons Skyscrapers in France Skyscraper office buildings in La Défense Office buildings completed in 1970 Residential buildings completed in 1970 Residential skyscrapers