Tour Montparnasse
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The tower is 209 metres (690 feet) high. The restaurant and observation deck on top offer excellent views over Paris.
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Tour Montparnasse (Montparnasse Tower) is a skyscraper at 23, avenue du Maine, in the Montparnasse area of Paris, France, the only skyscraper office building in Paris proper.
Built on top of the Paris Metro station "Montparnasse BienvenÃÂüe", the 58 floors of the tower are mainly occupied by offices, while two floors are open to the public for viewing the city; the 56th floor with a restaurant, and the terrace on the top floor. On a clear day, the view covers a radius of 40 kilometers; you can see the aeroplanes taking off from Orly Airport. Designed as a safety measure for visitors, the guard-rail can be removed in only 120 seconds to allow helicopters to land.
The building is often considered an eyesore, and some even claimed that it has the best possible view over Paris, for it does not appear in the landscape.
At the time of construction, it was the highest building in Europe. The construction of La Grande Arche at La DÃÂéfense places the tower in a second line of perspective across Paris: see Axe historique.
Without warning, in 1995, French urban climber, Alain "Spiderman" Robert, using only his bare hands and feet and with no safety devices of any kind, scaled the building's exterior glass and steel wall all the way to the top. Robert has scaled more than 70 giant structures around the globe, including the World's tallest structures.
To see the view across Paris from the observation deck of the tower, click here.
To see the tower viewed from the top level of the Eiffel Tower, click here.