Eiffel Tower to get 'multicolored' 70-storey skyscraper rival

London, May 28 : The Eiffel Tower will soon be getting a rival for the French capital's skyline when a 71-storey landmark skyscraper is built in La Defense on the edge of Paris.

French architect Jean Nouvel, the recent winner of the Pritzker Prize, the Nobel of architecture, has been selected for the construction of the colourful, high-tech Signal tower, which at 300 metres is almost as high as the Eiffel Tower.

It will contain offices, luxury apartments and shops and will also be the centrepiece of an attempt to remake the La Defense office ghetto into a 24-hour city, rivalling the "old Paris", reports The Independent.

The project was launched by President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2006 when he was the most senior local politician in the wealthy suburban departement of Hauts-de-Seine, just west of Paris proper.

Jean Nouvel said his building could become "the first expression of a new centre for the development of a Greater Paris ... without replacing the historic centre."

ANI