Visitors to the Eiffel Tower in Paris will now be able to look down through a vertigo-inducing glass floor that forms part of a US $38 million refit of France's most-visited tourist attraction. The transparent floor is on the first level of the tower, at 57 meters, where operators hope that visitors will linger before heading to the highest viewing platform at 276 meters above ground. Traditionally, tourists to the Eiffel Tower spend little time here before moving on to catch the better views from the two higher levels. To add more excitement to the view down to the ground, the old wire safety fence has been replaced by floor-to-ceiling glass barriers that tilt outwards. This project represented a technical exploit. Saint-Gobain had to develop a special product for the glass floor (128 square meters) and carry out very detailed studies bearing on the characteristics of the glass and the type of anti-skid coating to use. The floor had to remain as transparent as possible and the slip potential had to be minimized, which is why a pattern of dots (enamel and abrasive particles) was screen-printed on the upper surface of the glass. It took 18 months of R&D to conceive a high-quality screen printing process that would deliver excellent mechanical resistance and allow the product to keep looking attractive during use. Glassolutions, a Saint-Gobain subsidiary, developed and manufactured the 64 LITE-FLOOR XTRA GRIP glass tiles used for the floor. The tiles were made by laminating three sheets of glass with two high-strength films. The total thickness of this composite is 32 millimeters, giving it a load-bearing capacity of 500 kilogram/square meters. The refit of the half-hectare first floor, which began in May 2012 and was unveiled to the public Oct. 7, also includes shops, restaurants, and a museum telling the story of the 125-year-old construction. The tower's eco-friendliness has also improved, with the installation of four solar panels that will provide about half of the tower's hot-water requirements. Some of the toilets will also be operated using rainwater. About seven million people visit the Eiffel Tower each year - 85 percent of them foreigners - making it the world's busiest paid-for tourist attraction. The tower's management also hopes that the renovation will attract more Parisians to the "Dame en Fer" (The Iron Lady), as it is sometimes referred to in French. The tower opened in 1889 and was named after Gustave Eiffel, whose company engineered the project.

La Grande Arche in La Defense has dominated Paris' skyline for twenty five years, however the immense structure has fallen into disrepair as its marble facade crumbles and threatens to fall on people below. Fortunately, the French government has decided to invest US$ 267.5 million to renovate the iconic building and work is scheduled to begin in October. The 110-meter high and 110-meter wide cube of La Grande Arche surpasses the Notre Dame cathedral in size, and its large viewing platforms and commercial spaces once attracted over 250,000 visitors per year. It was designed by Danish architect Johann Otto von Spreckelsen, who won an international competition, but due to illness he had to pass on responsibility for its construction to French architect Paul Andreu. La Grande Arche was inaugurate back in 1989 as a symbol of prosperity and economic growth, but it has suffered substantial damage over the years. Several recent studies found portions of the building unsafe, partly due to the porosity of the stone. The weather and pollution have also left their mark on the architectural behemoth, and the area around the foot of the north side of the arch has been closed to the public. Additionally, some of the occupants of the office spaces on the south side have complained about the poor working conditions and the lack of natural light. The renovation work will focus on the building's south side and is expected to last for two years.

When I. M. Pei's glass pyramid opened at the Louvre more than 20 years ago, many argued that this 21.3 meters tall structure had destroyed the classical beauty of one of the world's great museums. But today, as crowds wait on long lines outside the pyramid, which serves as the Louvre's main entrance, what once seemed audacious has become as accepted a part of the city's visual landscape as the Eiffel Tower or the Arc de Triomphe. Now the museum is again risking the public's wrath as it introduces the most radical architectural intervention since the pyramid in 1989. Designed to house new galleries for Islamic art, it consists of ground- and lower-ground-level interior spaces topped by a golden, undulating roof that seems to float within the neo-Classical Visconti Courtyard in the middle of the Louvre's south wing, right below the museum's most popular galleries, where the Mona Lisa and Veronese's "Wedding Feast of Cana" are hung. This deftly engineered design is the work of two architects, the Italian Mario Bellini and the Frenchman Rudy Ricciotti, who won an international competition to create the new wing in 2005. Seven years in the making, the US$ 125 million project, which opened on September 22. When the plans were first unveiled, the architects said, the roof resembled "a scarf floating within the space" - a somewhat loaded description, perhaps, considering that last year the French officially banned full veils in public places. The museum's "luminous veil," or "flying carpet" as it has also been called, covers some 2790 square meters of gallery space on the ground and lower floors. The new galleries, roughly four times as large as the space previously devoted to Islamic art at the Louvre, house a collection spanning 1,200 years of history, from the 7th through the 19th centuries, and includes glass works, ceramics, metalwork, books, manuscripts, textiles and carpets. The roof is actually constructed of a free-form lattice composed of 8,000 steel tubes and glass covered by gilded metal. The undulating canopy contains the open floor plan gallery space where objects are displayed in glass cabinets. A large staircase descends to the lower level where natural daylight seeps in around the edges. A significant amount of work for the project required the team to excavate down 12 meters without disturbing the palace's original foundation. The result is a cavernous space reminiscent of a tent illuminated with a soft golden light.

The Eiffel Tower has been named as the most valuable monument of Europe in a new survey. It is difficult to believe now that the Eiffel Tower was originally built to last for only two decades. But thankfully it stayed on and became a permanent fixture on the Parisian landscape. The iconic 324-metre high structure has been named as the most valuable monument in Europe worth a staggering US$ 545 billion, according to a new study. Research commissioned by Italy's Monza and Brianza Chamber of Commerce considered monuments' image, branding and aesthetic qualities to determine a monetary value. Built in 1889 as the entrance arch to the World Trade Fair, the Eiffel Tower is the most visited paid for tourist attraction in the world which last year saw 7.1 million people climb to one of its three viewing platforms. A whopping 200 million visitors have now visited the landmark since it opened and the tower is still the tenth tallest lattice style building on the planet. Construction of the tower had been the subject of some controversy; attracting criticism from both those who doubted it was feasible and those were against the idea on artistic grounds. Their objections were a continuation of the longstanding debate about the relationship between architecture and engineering. Part of the original design rules were that it could be easily demolished but as the tower proved valuable for communication purposes, it was allowed to remain after the permit granted by the city expired. Eiffel Tower's value is five times more than its nearest rival the Coliseum in Rome, which is valued at US$ 114 billion. The gladiatorial Amphitheatre which was completed in 80AD draws about 4 million tourists a year to its crumbling interior. On the third place is the Sagrada Familia. Although it is still not finished Gaudi's famous cathedral in Barcelona is worth US$ 112 billion and is the continent's third most valuable monument. The UK's most valuable monument is deemed to be the 1,000-year-old Tower of London, which is worth an estimated US$ 88.7 billion to the British economy. In excess of 2 million visitors enter the tower, which is now looked after by the Historic Royal Palaces charity, every year. Other famous European landmarks on the list included the Duomo cathedral in Milan worth US$ 102.9 billion, Madrid's Prado Museum worth US$ 72.8 billion and Britain's Stonehenge worth US$ 13 billion. Stonehenge in Wiltshire dates from prehistoric times Wiltshire and is one of the most famous sites in the world. Composed of a circular setting of large standing stones set within earthworks its attraction lies not just in its age, but also the mystery that surrounds its construction - before the age of mechanical lifting equipment. It is at the center of the most dense complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred burial mounds. The gothic Duomo cathedral in Milan took nearly six centuries to complete and is the fourth largest cathedral in the world and the largest in Italy. The survey also put a price of US$ 101.4 billion on the White House in Washington DC. Home to the President of the United States the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aqua sandstone in the neoclassical style. It has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams.

The US$ 2.61 billion Hermitage Plaza Towers to be built in Paris La Defense business district have received planning permission and work on the site will start imminently, Emin Iskenderov, chief executive of development company Hermitage Group, said on March 9, during his interview to Wall Street Journal. Hermitage Group, a Paris-based private company with Russian origins, will start clearing the site for the two 320-meter-tall skyscrapers this month. The project will cost a total of US$ 2 billion, with US$ 916 million in bank debt arranged with four banks at a cost of 6.5 percent, and US$ 394 million of equity coming from Hermitage Group itself. The remaining US$ 1.3 billion will be financed through sales of apartments and offices. The Paris real-estate market, which was hit by the financial crisis in 2008, still hasn't recovered completely, and overall property prices remain below their 2007 peak. But Mr. Iskenderov is confident he can raise the US$ 1.3 billion portion needed through sales of apartments and offices as Hermitage Plaza will be La Defense's first building to offer mixed-use space. Hermitage Group will start selling the apartments in a year's time and expects a minimum price of US$ 15.7 thousand per square meter. Hermitage Plaza, designed by U.K.- based architects Foster and Partners, will provide 280 thousand square meters of mixed-use space, housing a five-star hotel, 543 apartments, 35 thousand square meters of offices and 50 thousand square meters of retail and restaurants. The Hermitage Towers will be 200 meters from La Defense's main transport links and will also provide 20 thousand square meters of public space.