Ville-Musée, Ville-Bijou or Ville-Merveille?

Berkeley, California based Leonard Pitt, author of “Walks through Lost Paris” and other guides to the Paris, has been angry at Baron Haussmann for as long as he can remember for razing more than 20,000 buildings to create the City of Light as we know it today. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of taking a walking tour of Paris with the author, then you know that he is more than passionate about the subject and has studied virtually every corner of Paris trying to recreate in his mind’s eye what the city would look like if the bulldozers hadn’t been set on attack in the last half of the 1800s.

Now he has a new cause: the skyscrapers in the future of Paris that will once again change the cityscape forever. He calls it “the slow tsunami that is set to unleash upon our dear city.” I’d dare say Leonard Pitt is having sleepless nights over it, imagining that, like in the days of Haussmann, our pristine 19th-century architecture will be dwarfed by the tall ‘monsters.’

“Parisians must Wake Up! or they will lose their city,” Leonard exclaims in a personal email to me in hopes I’ll alert you readers. He’s in daily contact with the organizers of a “manifestation” (demonstration) taking place this Saturday at 10:30 a.m. beginning at 15 boulevard Lefebvre, 15th. (Métro Porte de Versailles or Porte de Vanves), should you want to show your support. Pitt is preparing signs to carry sporting the “Ville-Musée, Non! Ville-Bijou, Oui! Or Ville-Merveille, Oui!”

Before you make your own signs and head to the 15th, you should know more about what’s really going on and why Paris has resurrected the idea for buildings taller than a Haussmannian with six floors. I doubt anyone would have even thought twice about it if it weren’t for Montparnasse Tower that was inaugurated in 1976, putting a tall black mark on the landscape and causing a ban on buildings higher than 121 feet.

Funny to us now, when looking back at when the Eiffel Tower was built in 1889 for the World’s Fair (“Exposition Universelle”), there were violent reactions and many wanted to take it down. It was the tallest building in the world at the time at 300 meters (984 feet), and spared for practical reasons as it proved to be an ideal platform for the transmitting antennas needed for the new science of radiotelegraphy. But look how it was opposed: “We protest with all our force, with all our indignation, in the name of unappreciated French taste, in the name of menaced French art and history, against the erection, in the very heart of our capital, of the useless and monstrous
Eiffel Tower…Is Paris going to be associated with the grotesque, mercantile imaginings of a constructor of machines?”

And now that it’s here, would Paris, or even the world for that matter, be the same without it? I don’t think so.

In July 2008 the Paris city council voted to consider erecting tall buildings on the rim of the city, with six new sites set for completion between 2012 and 2014 of buildings reaching as high as 656 feet (50 stories), or a little under two-thirds the height of the Eiffel Tower. Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë started the battle from the very onset of his administration — the battle between the “Ancients” and the “Moderns” with strong arguments for going ‘up,’ since there’s no chance of going ‘out’: “A capital gripped in its historical borders, devoid of building land, suffocating under the price per square meter when there is a serious housing and utilities shortage.”

The Mayor argued that building towers “would help young families with children afford to live in Paris and, but only secondarily, that it would provide office space for corporations.” According to the statistics, 10% of the population of France is without a proper home. You may recall the “sleep-in” along the Canal Saint-Martin in 2009 sheltering homeless in orange tents — a protest to publicize the city’s need for more housing.

With an eye on the real estate market, we know that the city’s need to find affordable housing for residents is so acute that it’s forcing city planners to take measures to reduce the numbers of vacant properties and properties used for temporary housing, simply to satisfy this need. Investors in Paris real estate are struggling against new ordinances that limit their ability to do what they need and want with their investments to reap reasonable profits.

Interestingly enough, of the tower projects, not one of the three that have been approved provides housing for young families. The first skyscraper is a glass pyramid designed by Pritzker Prize-winners Herzog & de Meuron, that will rise above the low exhibition halls at the Porte de Versailles in the 15th arrondissement, directly in the line of sight of the Eiffel Tower. There has been strong opposition from an organization of local associations called the “Collectif Contre La Tour Triangle.” It’s designated as a hotel and not for housing.

The second and third projects will be erected on undeveloped land at Clichy-Batignolles in the 17th arrondissement. These will be government-built apartments, courts of law and offices on the rail yards behind the Gare Saint-Lazare. At the far western end near the “Périphérique,” Renzo Piano’s four-layered skyscraper will be visible from central Paris. Some lawyers who would have to relocated from the Palais de Justice on the Île de la Cité have brought suit against the city for what they say the expensive new building will further stretch an already thin budget. Again, the structures are not designated for housing.

Architect Jean Nouvel’s pair of skyscrapers (“Duo”) in the Masséna district of Paris (13th arrondissement) with colorful facades and terraced gardens are scheduled to be on the cityscape by 2018. The 50 meter (164 feet) towers will house offices and a hotel. Housing? No. Controversial? Definitely!

And why aren’t the buildings designed for housing, when that’s what the city set out to accomplish? Because it’s not economical. The cost of building high rises increases sharply on floors above the sixth and again above 20 stories. Expensive structures make more sense for expensive apartments and penthouses, for people who can afford to pay the price — not for lower and middle-income families. In addition, the buildings actually yield less density than the compact Haussmannians and in fact, as a result, Paris is four times denser than London and is even denser than Mumbai.

Opposing city planners argue that reviving the old building patterns would help squeeze more families into the current landscape, but the Mayor and City Council believe that the office towers will attract more corporate tax revenues and will offer spectacular views, as well as put Paris in the league of other cities such as Singapore, New York, and London. They claim that “without the towers, Paris will become a ‘museum’ city, like Venice.”

The polls say that Parisians don’t want the towers, but the Mayor thinks he knows best. Pitt asks, “Does anyone really think Paris suffers because it doesn’t have skyscrapers?”

Personally, I think Paris is Paris because of Baron Haussmann, even though he destroyed 20,000 buildings to make way for our boulevards and elegant apartment blocks…and Paris is Paris because of the Tour Montparnasse as unsightly as it is…and Paris is Paris because it will come into this modern age, however kicking and screaming…and become another kind of Paris. With the skyscrapers, our inner city will become even more treasurable and our properties there will be come even more valuable.

Sorry, Leonard Pitt, I am not opposed. I will love Paris in whatever form it is and whatever form it takes, as we simply cannot stand still, not in today’s world.

A bientôt,

Adrian Leeds
Editor, French Property Insider

Email: [email protected]

 P.S. Aussies (and Kiwis), we have not forgotten you! Australian property consultant, Sarah Potter, and I (lowly American) will be co-hosting a special Meetup of the “Aussie-Francophile Property Network” on October 1st here in Paris where we will be discussing “How to Manage Your Paris Rental Apartment from Long Distance.” You need not be Australian or New Zealander to attend — but we do hope to provide a forum for our Australasia friends. Monday, October 1, 6 to 7:30 p.m. at La Pierre du Marais. Visit  Aussie Francophile Property Network for more information and to join our network!