Layetana and Jean Nouvel win the tender to develop the Signal Tower, the highest sky-scraper ever designed in Paris

Barcelona, 27th May 2008. The consortium led by Layetana Developments has won the tender to build the Signal Tower, a new sky-scraper that will be erected in La Défense, the financial district of Paris. The project has been designed by Jean Nouvel, winner of the 2008 edition of the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

The tender called by the public body in charge of developing La Défense district (EPAD) received 35 projects from such prestigious architects as Norman Foster and David Libeskind (winner of New York's Freedom Tower project).

The Signal Tower will be 300 m high, almost as high as the emblematic Eiffel Tower and will take up an area of 140,000 m2. Some of the features of this project are the various elements that will turn it into an example of sustainability as well as the multiple use of the building, with its 50,000 m2 for offices, 33,000 m2 for dwellings, 39,000 m2 for hotel services, 8,000 m2 for public infrastructure and 10,000 m2 for shops and restaurants.

The project is aimed to become the renovation flagship of this Paris district and a new icon of the French capital, just like the Eiffel Tower did by the end of 19th C. This construction is part of a renovation plan that started back in 2006 to reinforce the attractiveness of La Défense.

According to Layetana, "our participation in this type of projects is in line with our philosophy as a company. We seek to take part in projects where architecture and sustainability, besides profitability, play an outstanding role. In addition, in this case we will be able to apply the accumulated experience over the years in developing emblematic buildings such as the Agbar Tower, in which we already worked hand in hand with Jean Nouvel or the Fira Towers by Japanese architect Toyo Ito".

"The fact of having been chosen in the tender to develop the Signal Tower boosts our expansion strategy to other European countries, where we plan to develop projects in the residential and office sectors".

Jean Nouvel, responsible for such emblematic buildings as the Cartier Foundation in Paris, the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid and Barcelona's Poblenou Park, assures that the Signal Tower "expresses a new type of tower and this is translated into the will of mixing the programme (shops, offices, hotel and dwellings) together with all considerations made for an environmentally-friendly building".

Layetana was founded in 1964 and since then has developed different types of projects, covering a wide range of building products: hotels and shopping centres but also residential and corporate complexes. It is present in various Spanish cities as well as in 3 cities in Poland where it has a significant local team and different projects within the residential and tertiary sector.