PARIS • City couusncillors voted in favour of hotly contested plans for a giant triangular tower that will be the capital's first skyscraper in more than 40 years. The tower, 180m high and vying on the skyline with the Eiffel Tower, will house a 120-room hotel and 70,000 sq m of office space.

Paris' Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo diluted opposition to the new Tour Triangle in November last year after some of its office space was sacrificed for childcare and cultural centres.

The Tour Triangle, due to be completed in 2018, will be on the city's south-west in the Porte de Versailles neighbourhood, alongside vast convention halls.

The building was designed by Swiss-based architects Herzog & de Meuron, who were behind the conversion of London's Bankside Power Station into the Tate Modern art museum and Beijing's "Bird's Nest" National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics.

Europe's biggest listed property group Unibail Rodamco is putting € 500 million (S$748 million) into the project.

Skyscrapers have faced deep opposition in Paris ever since the 300m-tall Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 Universal Exposition. The last major skyscraper built within Paris proper was the 59-floor, 210m Montparnasse building in southern Paris, which opened in 1973. Since then, most skyscrapers have been concentrated in the La Defense business district in the western outskirts.

REUTERS