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The Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and … the Triangle Tower? A proposed design for a 40-story steel and glass tower by Swiss firm could be the next addition to the architectural landscape in Paris.

The tower would include offices, a conference hall, restaurants with panoramic views and ground-floor shops. The tower would create 5,000 jobs, not including construction, according to local authorities.

But as with most architectural experimentation in Paris, the tower is not without controversy. When the Eiffel Tower was built, Parisians thought it was ugly. Designer William Morris famously said that his favorite spot in the city was under it because “it’s the only place I can’t see it from.”

But , the chief concern with the new tower is its height. Paris has had a height limitation of 121 feet for the past 30 years, after the colossal Tour Montparnasse, at 689 feet, was built in 1977. Montparnasse is largely seen as an eyesore, a big, daunting skyscraper that doesn’t fit in with Paris’s romantic topography.

There’s :

Olivier de Rohan Chabot from the Safeguard of French Art group, said he was not against towers in principle, but within central Paris they ruined the skyline’s “general harmony”.

“Look at the Montparnasse Tower; it has crushed the hotel des Invalides (housing Napoleon’s tomb),” he told Le Figaro newspaper.

And then:

The running joke in France, is: “What do you call a Belgian who blows up the Tour Montparnasse? A national hero.”

But the Triangle Tower is only planned to be 590 feet, shorter than Montparnasse and shorter than the 1,072-foot Eiffel Tower. Not to mention it will be shorter than most towers in the city’s business district, La Défense, located west of the city’s center.

So what do you think? Is Paris due for an architectural revolution?