Gustafson Porter + Bowman compare OnE concept to a 'landscape painting'

Gustafson Porter + Bowman has won a ‘career-defining’ competition to design a £35 million overhaul of the spaces around the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The contest, launched in early 2018, sought a public realm upgrade to boost safety, improve the tourist experience and reduce queuing around the 324m-tall wrought-iron tower, currently the most visited ticketed monument in the world.

Working with French studio Chartier-Corbasson, the London-based practice created likened their concept to “a landscape painting where multiple colours, different textures combine to form a single image.” Named OnE, the proposal covers a 54 ha site stretching 1.6km from either side of the River Seine, between the Trocadéro and the Military Academy, and along the river embankments between Bir-Hakeim and Alma Bridges.

The design interlocks a series of landscapes around a central green axis, including an amphitheatre of greenery, a new and enlivened public space, and a bridge reincarnated as a green promenade towards the Eiffel Tower gardens. OnE evokes the union of two historic types of French gardens: formally planted, well-defined areas expressing power, and picturesque spaces for artistic experimentation. All the “corridors” and “glades” introduce biodiversity, as well as creating new areas for hosting temporary events, such as musical performances and sculpture exhibitions.

Kathryn Gustason, founding partner, stated: “This competition has been especially meaningful to me because I studied in Paris at L’École Nationale Supérieure de Paysage. Every day I passed the Eiffel Tower, on my way to a school where I was immersed in the great historic landscapes of Versailles. The Eiffel Tower reminds me that patrimony means leaving something better for future generations. Our proposal unites a celebration of history with an enhancement of the future.”

As part of the city’s showcase for the 2024 Olympic games, the first phase of the redevelopment is to be completed by 2023.

Lucy Nordberg
TenderStream Head of Research

This competition was first published by TenderStream on 20.02.2018 here

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