From Child’s Dream to Reality

For the past few decades in the world occurs some kind of skyscrapers competition. Where will rise another the tallest tower? The competition that has always existed between towers: constantly striving to be taller, more unique, give more panoramic views from the top, and nowadays, be more environmentally friendly. In Jean-Paul Viguier’s imagination, towers bring back childhood emotions. The scale to which humans define themselves today changed - it’s the Gulliver effect.

At the end of the 1980s, the Grande Arche clearly placed La Defense in line with historical axis of Le Notre, which starts at the Tuileries garden. This magnificent architectural masterpiece was designed by Danish architect Johann Otto von Spreckelsen. Located in this same line, the Majunga Tower will be visible from the heart of Paris on a fine day. Made up of three vertical blocks, each slightly different from the other, Majunga is like a giant tropical plant whose stem thickens as it grows during the rainy season. Monotony is suppressed by the geometric variation of each floor.

Repetition remains an exercise that Jean-Paul Viguier is fond of for the rigor and inventiveness it requires. “A demanding repetition that requires you to persevere with the design of a floor and detail of a facade to end up with simple and sober result, like Mies van der Rohe, which can be duplicated on all floors”. The building envelope has a double skin of glass which allows the occupants to open the windows and feel less closed in.

Natural air can circulate inside, reducing power consumption for air conditioning. Between these two layers, Jean- Paul Viguier uses the space to create a garden on each floor with a living space. A piece of natural earth, the garden introduces in the tower a familiar element, adapted to the scale of the users. Without wanting to dominate, Majunga is designed as a bridge between the universe of the child and that of adults in their daily office environment.

Perhaps a way for workers to escape their everyday reality. Majunga reinvents the concept of the office tower. It’s an office tower for the twenty-first century. So clearly there’s a parting of the ways. But it shares a lot with Coeur-Defense too: the site; the fact that it’s built on the ground and not on a slab; and the developer, Unibail Rodamco. The architect and Rodamco commented: “We know each other well, we know what we want to do, we share the same ambition.”

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Materials provided by Jean-Paul Viguier et Associes
Photos: Takuji Shimmura