It may be a remarkable feat of engineering, but it still looks like a termite mound.

jwer said: It may be a remarkable feat of engineering, but it still looks like a termite mound.

Instead you prefer big grey boxes that forcefully symbolize modern human domination (destruction) over Earthly ecology? I live in New York City and some architectural historians refer to Manhattan as the 'Modernist's Graveyard.' Giant grey boxes giving off for me, a vibe of coldness, of consumptive carelessness. My vision is that more biomorphic building structures can give way to a more enlightening relationship with the planet, whereby the built environment fosters healthy water, air, edaphic systems, and producing their own clean energy to boot. For me, the more expressive a building's form, the kinder and more intelligent its gifts.

Termites building with glass now? I gotta see that!

Interesting that new buildings try to connect with and reflect nature, whereas skyscrapers and grey boxes were often built to demonstrate man's victory over nature. I wonder what the birds make of it all....

All they're missing are more trees and bushes around the base to make it more life-like. I hear it will weather to more of a fleshy tone.

Well, Paris is the city of love!

machoRobot3000, there's one thing to be said for those concrete boxes - at the very least they all 'fit' together.

I love this biomorphic stuff, but I've seen too many Deconstructivist re-imaginings of cities like Paris that already have their own historical charm and motif. So... I'm just glad this is going up in the financial district.

machoRobot3000: not at all, and in fact, given the buildings in La Defense, this could be said to be an improvement. However, New York is also home to the Chrysler, Empire State, and Flatiron buildings, just as London has the Gherkin, Lloyd's Bank building, and so on. It's not clear why anyone would think that buildings either need to look like boxes OR like excreta, since there is such a huge continuum of genuinely aesthetically appealing buildings in between. How much does it add to the production cost of a building to specify 20,000 custom glass panes? At least ugly prefab is less energy-intensive to build. There are enough examples of attractive LEED-certified buildings in the world that something like this seems less about adding to that body and more about making a building that looks like it could only have been designed on an expensive computer, which is of course the case.

I think it looks great. They already have very cutting edge buildings in Paris, such as (at the time) the Eiffel Tower, the Pompidou, and Arc de defence (spelling???). I think this would fit in nicely. And what happened with the new WTC having wind turbines? This seems to pick up where NYC left off.

It looks weird like the termite mound, but I like weird. I'm an urban designer, I'm allowed to say that, hahah.

I hope they put big gutters on it, otherwise when it rains, all the water will gush down on the folks below..

Hi, I'm a brazilian journalist and I'd like to make contact with Thom Mayne about that project.
Can I have his e-mail?
Thanks a lot.

I enjoy artists creating more natural shapes and scales for large buildings. I think as one cmmenter said, this reminds us of our connection to the rest of the planet. This building concerns me however, by its technical complexity. Of couse the use of energy conserving devices is laudable. Its use of unnatural materials or materials used in a way unnatural to them, to produce a natural looking shape for me gives the feeling of fragility, of the possibility of a plethora of technical glitches. I hope not. This is however a great piece of art for the most artistic city on the planet. Paris has its artistic heritage, and pays homage to that (keeping all towers below l'Eiffel), but at the same time always supports and celebrates new forms of art. No wonder even the Nazi military could not bring themselves to destroy her!