Project

Homepage
Project

Alta Tower

A reinforced concrete frame defines the twisting form of a tower designed by local studio Hamonic + Masson & Associés for the port city of Le Havre in northern France.
Called the Alta Tower, the residential building has a prominent position in the city at the centre of Le Havre's 20th-century postwar masterplan designed by French architect Auguste Perret.
At 55 metres tall, the tower is the third-tallest structure in the city centre – a UNESCO World Heritage Site – after the Perret-designed St Joseph church and the Le Havre town hall.
"The port of Le Havre is the horizon. It is the sea and the sky that come together," studio founder Jean-Christophe Masson told Dezeen.
"Alta presents a new high point in the city and so it had to convey this dynamism." The Alta Tower was designed to make a "bold and expressive statement", the studio added.
Hamonic + Masson & Associés' design for the tower builds on Perret's reinvention of Le Havre, and responds to a nearby cultural centre with curvaceous forms designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer.
The resulting ascending twist was designed to combine Perret's gridded streets and buildings with Niemeyer's sinuous curves, using concrete in a nod to the city's existing architecture.