Signal tower

The Loggia Tower

The skyline of La Defense reveals an accumulation of dissimilar objects. Fortunately, the Arch is a soothing view and connecting the whole picture. The Signal Tower shall also tend to be a soothing element. It shall have a federating role, like a landmark, a standard. It has to stabilize and therefore highlight the objects of this really unsettled collage. The Signal tower is indeed the loggia tower. The loggias, these large hollow spaces, large covered terraces, as a magnificence of the great architecture in the Italian urbanity.

The loggias with their singular character. All together, these loggias express the composite, multipurpose aspect of a living urban programme which is meant to create life. The loggia tower has some inner spaces visible from outside. It is massive but open, restrained but bright and the grey tones of its steel curves are illuminated by the golden mirrors which reflect a warm light inside. The modern geometry of the Mandelbrot dragoons crosses the partitions of the loggias like filigree – the Italian loggias were sumptuously painted-. These loggias open and close, they create a thermal balance through the managing of solar inputs. It is a typological archetype of sustainable architecture.

Jean Nouvel