Tour Signal was a proposed

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-ri ...

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 Courbev ...

and in

Puteaux Puteaux () is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located in the heart of the Hauts-de-Seine department, from the centre of Paris. In 2016, it had a population of 44,941. La Défense, Paris's business district hosting th ...

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 ...

.Lebow, Arthur
"The Contextualizer,"
''New York Times.'' April 6, 2008, p. 4; excerpt, "''...a skyscraper that Nouvel (adapting a term from the artist Brâncuși) called the “tour sans fins,” or endless tower. Conceived as a kind of minaret alongside the squat, monumental Grande Arche de La Défense, the endless tower has taken on some of the mystique of Mies van der Rohe’s unbuilt Friedrichstrasse glass skyscraper of 1921. To obscure its lower end, the tower was designed to sit within a crater. Its facade, appearing to vanish in the sky, changed as it rose, from charcoal-colored granite to paler stone, then to aluminum and finally to glass that became increasingly reflective, all to enhance the illusion of dematerialization''."

Design and development

Medea and Layetana were the developers with Ateliers

Jean Nouvel Jean Nouvel (; born 12 August 1945) is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of ''Mars 1976'' and '' Syndicat de l'Architecture'', France’s first labor union for architects. He has o ...

as architects.

Location

West Gate was chosen as the location for the building in order to open the La Défense district to the municipality of Puteaux. The project’s ambition was to create a stronger polarity at the heart of the

Île-de-France The Île-de-France (, ; literally "Isle of France") is the most populous of the eighteen regions of France. Centred on the capital Paris, it is located in the north-central part of the country and often called the ''Région parisienne'' (; en, Pa ...

and develop a major attraction while relating the project to its natural and built environment and, lastly, embodying the various elements which strengthen the feeling that the project belongs in the district.

Outcome

This project has been cancelled. In 2009, Medea and Layetana announced they are not involved in the project anymore, and the new president of the EPAD Joëlle Ceccaldi-Raynaud declared her opposition to the tower which looks like an unaesthetic "

monolith A monolith is a geological feature consisting of a single massive stone or rock, such as some mountains. For instance, Savandurga mountain is a monolith mountain in India. Erosion usually exposes the geological formations, which are often ma ...

". *Structural type: highrise *Architectural style:

modern Modern may refer to: History *Modern history ** Early Modern period ** Late Modern period *** 18th century *** 19th century *** 20th century ** Contemporary history * Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century Philosophy ...

*Materials:

glass Glass is a non- crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenchin ...

steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistan ...

and

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wid ...

*Design: http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=76763

Notes

{{coord, 48, 53, 29, N, 2, 14, 01, E, region:FR_type:landmark_source:kolossus-frwiki, display=title Unbuilt buildings and structures in France