The TF1 Tower (french: Tour TF1) is a building in the

Boulogne-Billancourt Boulogne-Billancourt (; often colloquially called simply Boulogne, until 1924 Boulogne-sur-Seine, ) is a wealthy and prestigious Communes of France, commune in the Parisian area, located from its Kilometre zero, centre. It is a Subprefectures in ...

suburb of Paris, used as the headquarters of the French TV channel

TF1 TF1 (; standing for ''Télévision Française 1'') is a French commercial television network owned by TF1 Group, controlled by the Bouygues conglomerate. TF1's average market share of 24% makes it the most popular domestic network. TF1 is par ...

and several subsidiaries of the

TF1 Group TF1 Group (french: Groupe TF1) is a French media holding company. Its best-known property is the broadcast network TF1. The group was formed after TF1 was privatized in April 1987. It is controlled with a 43% stake by Bouygues, and is quoted ...

since 1992.

Location

The TF1 Tower is located at the corner of Quai du Point-Du-Jour and Avenue Le-Jour-Se-Lève in the Point-Du-Jour neighborhood of

in the

Hauts-de-Seine Hauts-de-Seine (; ) is a Departments of France, département in the Île-de-France Regions of France, region, Northern France. It covers Paris's western inner Banlieue, suburbs. It is bordered by Paris, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne to the e ...

department, southwest of Paris. It is situated close to the

Pont aval The Pont Aval is a bridge that crosses the Seine in Paris, France. It is open exclusively to motor vehicles traveling along the Boulevard Périphérique The Boulevard Périphérique (), often called the Périph', is a controlled-access dual ...

and the Pont d'Issy.

Architecture

The TF1 Tower is shaped as

cylinder A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infin ...

covered with reflective glass. It has 14 floors and an overall floor area of . The direction offices are located on the upper floor. A webcam on the top of the tower broadcasts real-time pictures of Paris on TF1's official website as well as in TF1's news programme studio.

History

The building was designed by architect and built by the

Bouygues Bouygues S.A. () is a French industrial group headquartered in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. Bouygues is listed on the Euronext, Euronext Paris exchange and is a blue chip (stock market), blue chip in the C ...

group. Its construction was decided after a delegated project management agreement dated March 20th, 1991 and authorised by the administration council on April 11th, 1991. The construction was invoiced €37.1 million in fiscal year 1991 and €18.8 million in fiscal year 1992. The TF1 channel moved to the building on June 1st, 1992, from its former headquarters at . Thanks to a leasing contract, the

became the owner of the tower on June 30th, 2001. According to journalists and Henri Haguet, the new headquarters tower is symbolic of TF1's ideological shift toward

productivity Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proces ...

. TF1 also uses the tower for advertising and displaying. On April 15th, 2012, the façade was lit with a screen that enabled the news programme to be watched from the banks of the

Seine River ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributaries ...

In popular culture

In 1995, the tower was climbed with bare hands by

Alain Robert Alain Robert (born as Robert Alain Philippe on 7 August 1962) is a French rock climber and urban climber. Known as "the French Spider-Man" (after the comic character Spider-Man) or "the Human Spider", Robert is famous for his free solo climbing ...

. In 2005, the TF1 Tower was featured in the introduction animated short film of

Arthur Arthur is a common male given name of Brittonic languages, Brythonic origin. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. The etymology is disputed. It may derive from the Celtic ''Artos'' meaning “Bear”. An ...

's one-man-show ''Arthur en vrai''. In August 2007, an advertisement for video game ''

Halo 3 ''Halo 3'' is a 2007 first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The third installment in the ''Halo'' franchise, the game concludes the story arc begun in 2001's '' Halo: Combat Evolved'' and continued in 2 ...

'' showed the game's main character inside the TF1 Tower. Virals videos showed the character near the building's entrance and in the weather forecast studio. In the November 28th, 2008 episode of ''

Star Academy ''Star Academy'', called ''Operación Triunfo'' ("Operation Triumph") in Spanish-speaking countries, is a highly successful television pop music talent contest with viewer voting and reality show elements. Format There are many versions of t ...

s eighth season, a special credit video shows kids climbing the tower to reach guest singer

Britney Spears Britney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981) is an American singer. Often referred to as the " Princess of Pop", she is credited with influencing the revival of teen pop during the late 1990s and early 2000s. After appearing in stage productio ...

who landed on the roof with a helicopter. In 1997, the tower appeared on the title page of

Pierre Péan Pierre Péan (5 March 1938 – 25 July 2019) was a French investigative journalist and author of many books concerned with political scandals. Books, investigations and controversies In 1983 Pierre Péan was the first to break the story of the Gre ...

and

Christophe Nick Christophe may refer to: People * Christophe (given name), list of people with this name * Christophe (singer) (1945–2020), French singer * Cristophe (hairstylist) (born 1958), Belgian hairstylist * Georges Colomb (1856–1945), French comic str ...

's pamphlet named ''TF1, un pouvoir''. The building was also shown on the covers of the books ''TF1, une expérience'' (2006) and ''Madame, monsieur, bonsoir'' (2007).

Gallery

ImmeubleTF1-Boulogne.jpg, The TF1 Tower TF1, Pont d'Issy-les-Moulineaux, Paris 6 November 2016.jpg, On November 6th, 2016.

References

{{Portal bar, France, Architecture, Television Buildings and structures in Hauts-de-Seine Towers completed in 1992 Skyscrapers in France Headquarters in France Mass media company headquarters Television in France