In Grenoble, the Perret Tower is getting a new lease of life

Classified as a historic monument in 1998 but closed to the public since 1960, the 95-meter-high reinforced concrete tower has been the subject of major renovation work since the fall of 2023, a “titanic project costing 15,5 million euros” in partnership with the State (5 million) and the department of Isère (3 million), bringing together scientists and specialized companies.

“The objective is the end of the restoration at the end of October 2025, and then there is all the scenographic work and the internal development of the tower to be carried out to be able to welcome the public”, indicated Valérie Vacchiani, director of project for the City of Grenoble, during a technical progress update on the work.

“The objective of this restoration is obviously to give the Tower back to the people of Grenoble,” she added, specifying however that to date, no planned opening date has been set. The number of potential visitors per year to the tower, designed to offer a remarkable panorama of the surrounding mountain ranges, is estimated at between 40.000 and 50.000, but it cannot exceed 49 people simultaneously according to her.

For now, the Tower, the last vestige of the International White Coal and Tourism Exhibition held in 1925 in Grenoble, is surrounded by construction equipment and protective fences.

The companies selected to carry out the work began to dismantle the elevator cabins to restore them, demolished the "cap" (a sort of circular canopy at the foot of the monument), and began drilling the ground to reinforce the Tower's foundations. , which showed a “tilt of approximately 40 cm” at its top, officials explained.

Auguste Perret "wanted to demonstrate the plastic and structural capabilities of this new material", concrete, we can read on the website of the Heritage Foundation, which invited the public to participate in the project via a collection and raised some 82.000 euros to this day.

"He produced an extraordinary work whose constructive principles prefigured the Modern Movement in architecture. This +tower for looking at the mountains+, in his own words, is one of his rare achievements that has come down to us in its original state. 'origin', underlines the Heritage Foundation.