Jean Nouvel's recently completed towers, Tours Duo, redefined the Parisian skyline. Captured by Paul Clemence in his latest photo series, the project by Ateliers Jean Nouvel creates a singularity in relation to the rails that lead into the city's heart and define the Avenue de France. Established as a landmark on the East side of Paris and considered to be the city's future, Tours Duo is a mixed-use project that completes and modifies the unfinished context of this part of the city.
Completed in 2021, the towers Duo 1 of 39 stories and 180metres, and Duo 2 of 28 stories and 125 meters high, incorporate a hotel designed by Philippe Starck, office spaces, bars and restaurants, an auditorium, and retail rooms. Encountering the conditions of the site, an industrial zone on the banks of the Seine, the windows operate as shields from the sound and dust pollution of the ring boulevard.
Like any Nouvel architecture, the towers create a visual landscape. These two inclined volumes come into focus by sharping the perspective of the Avenue de France and catching the reflection of the rail tracks adjacent to the site. One of the towers is along the boulevard du Général Jean-Simon, a growing urban hub, to provide a visible dynamic seen from the boulevard. The location also provides, in Nouvel's words, "a more urban, a more human access to the project."
The French architect’s ability to inject his international image is captured by Paul Clemence in framing the open V of sunlight. The transverse fracture between the volumes is also a resource to preserve views of the Berliet industrial building, the French manufacturer of automobiles. The V composition marks a city landmark. Besides setting character in Eastern Paris, the Duo 1 tower is the third tallest building in Paris, after Tour Eiffel and Tour Montparnasse.
Paul Clemence's lens gives context to the ambitious plan to reshape Paris. His pictures of the facade composition and their reflection reveal the singular beauty of the site. The photographs allow appreciation of the playful terraces and the intersection of the volumes.
Besides the Tours Duo, Jean Nouvel is designing a New Vertical Neighbourhood, a new mixed-use development in the Greater area of the French capital. Moreover, the Hekla Tower in La Défense, a 220-meter-high tower designed by the Ateliers, is due to be completed in 2022. Both projects align with the Parisian future-forward urbanist strategies that plan to ban non-essential traffic from its city center by the Olympics in 2024.
See the full series and learn more about Paul Clemence's work on his Facebook page Archi-photo.
