Going High

Friday, 30 Janvier

“When they go low,” Michelle Obama famously said at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, “we go high.” She was responding to Republican candidate Donald Trump’s campaign against his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. “When someone is cruel or acts like a bully,” the outgoing first lady said, “you don’t stoop to their level.” Excellent advice, though 10 years later, I'm not sure how many people were listening.

Even keeping your head above water these first weeks of 2026 has been a challenge...

...so the other day I decided to go high literally: to the top of Paris’ tallest building, the Montparnasse Tower. I had recently read that it will soon be closed for renovations lasting “several years” (read “many”). With the inadvertence of a resident rather than the diligence of a tourist, I had never been to the observatory (similarly, I have only visited the Eiffel Tower once, with my parents, age 13). It was probably now or never.

La Tour Montparnasse was built between 1969-73 on the ruins of the old Gare du Maine and was part of the general reconstruction project of the larger, adjacent Gare Montparnasse. Eight hectares (20 acres) of rundown streets were razed in the process.

The architects were French, but the developer was an American, Wylie Tuttle. He said: “Paris needs a skyscraper." Later, I knew his Paris-based daughter Alexandra, an exuberant and intrepid journalist whose military plane was shot down over Abkhazia on her way to Georgia while reporting on the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1993. That such a young, vibrant woman could be shot out of the sky was an early lesson in mortality and our fragile position on this earth. It also meant that despite never having been inside the building, I felt a personal connection - something that happens often in this intimate city.

Construction of the tower was an architectural Statement (Statements are important to the French), intended as the summit, so to speak, of the country's Trente Glorieuses, its thirty-year post-War economic boom. At 210 metres (700 ft) and 59 floors in all, it was indeed the only skyscraper in town. And – even more heretically – it was built slightly off the axis formed by the palais de Chaillot (place de Trocadéro), the Eiffel Tower, the Champs des Mars and the Ecole Militaire.

When I arrived in 1981, people were still arguing about whether it was a monstrous aberration or a sign that Paris was alive and kicking in the second half of the 20th century. Accordingly, the tower has two nicknames: the Black Widow or the Exclamation Point. Given that a 2008 survey conducted by Visual.Tourist.com, voted it the second ugliest building in the world (Boston City Hall came first), maybe the Black Widow! is an apt portemanteau.

But not for much longer. Paris takes its Symbols seriously, too, and the renovation project aims to bring la Tour Montparnasse firmly into the 21st century. After the asbestos is removed, a shimmery cladding will lighten and brighten the dour structure, as well as expanding the surface area. The winning architectural firm promised a "bioclimatic metamorphosis of the façade," ie, an ecologically modified exterior, with lots of végétalisées (planted) terraces.

Now an office building, it will become more of a community hub, adding social and student housing, sports areas, space for cultural activities and - thank God - a new shopping centre because the current one is mostly closed and super depressing, a sign that yesterday's dreams have not come true today.

I visited end of the afternoon, hoping to catch some nice light. Street level was not promising, between the closed shopping centre, the ailing entrance...

...and the dated, dark lobby. But 38 seconds and 200 metres later, you forget about all that because there is Paris spread out below and around you as far as the eye can see. Even under a disappointingly grey sky, the city's life force - the harmony (all those straight lines and mansard roofs) and the gentle dissonance (centuries of buildings packed in one against another) - is mesmerising.

Then, in a flash, out came the sun...

...and as it started to go down...

...I fell in love with my city all over again, was overwhelmed at my luck in living amidst such earthly beauty. I felt, well, high.

Maybe that's the answer in these otherwise go-low times: snatch a moment of magnificence wherever you can. And hope for brighter days ahead.

*The cluster of towers in the background is real; the skyscrapers form the business district of La Défense - outside the city limits - and yet another French Statement.