Pyramid-shaped skyscraper to be built in Paris

A spectacular new 42-floor pyramid-shaped skyscraper is set to be built in Paris after years of planning, a move the city’s Greens denounced as “catastrophic” and counter to climate pledges.

The Triangle Tower (Tour Triangle), to be built in the 15th district on the city’s southwestern edge, is set to be finished in 2026 after winning financing from insurance giant Axa following years of delays. Work is due to start next year.

It will be a rare high-rise addition to the skyline within the inner city limits of the French capital, which prides itself on keeping its historic character intact in the face of rampant development elsewhere.

Designed by Swiss architects Herzog and Meuron, it will inevitably draw comparisons with the famous modern pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre museum in central Paris – though far larger and resembling a giant elongated wedge of Toblerone chocolate.

Green legislators on the Paris city council, who sit in coalition with Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo, denounced the plan as a “climatic aberration” that should be abandoned.