Esso Tower
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The Esso Tower was one of the first buildings built in La Défense in the 1960s. It was demolished in 1993 to be replaced by the Cœur Défense tower.
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[edit] A pioneer of La Défense
This building was a pioneer from many points of view: the first office building in France, it was built in the district of La Défense in 1963, when the business district was not yet established: only the CNIT was built earlier. The land had already been bought by Esso in 1957, even before the Public Establishment for Installation of La Défense (EPAD) existed.
Esso wanted its 1550 employees be able to work in a single comfortable and functional building. This one included one of the very first self-service restaurants, an air-conditioned room for IBM computers, an employee lounge, and even a movie theater. The building went into service in April 1965.
In 1993, the Esso tower was also the first tower of La Défense to be demolished. Today the Cœur Défense tower rises in its place, completed in 2001.
[edit] Characteristics
- Architects: Gréber, Lathrop and Douglas
- 11 floors
- 30,000 m²
- central concrete structure concentrating the elevators and the wiring network — the facades are metal curtain walls.
- built on the Commune of Courbevoie, in sector 4 of La Défense.
[edit] Trivia
- The La Défense district was poorly served by public transport at the time. The SNCF railway station of La Défense did not yet exist — the train on the Saint-Lazare line dropped off Esso employees onto the track.
- When the Esso building was built, the stone esplanade had not yet been constructed. The entry to the building was thus logically at ground level. Afterwards, the esplanade was located on the level of the 3rd floor.
- For a time, the name Esso was readable in lighted letters on the facade, the letters being formed by judiciously lowering the curtains on the windows.
