Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Hanging Gardens Redux: "Firm wants to turn Eiffel Tower into "giant tree"" Au Contraire says City Hall

For those looking to short the consultant pushing this idea, it's Ginger Group, not the spice. Or the Spice girl.
I checked.
From Reuters:
An aerial view of the Eiffel Tower in Paris on Bastille Day July 14, 2011.  REUTERS/Charles Platiau
An aerial view of the Eiffel Tower in Paris on Bastille Day July 14, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/Charles Platiau
(Reuters) - A French company wants to turn the Eiffel Tower into a heaving, breathing, botanical giant by draping its mass of metal struts and rivets under a mantle made of 600,000 plants.
The plan to transform one of the biggest tourist attractions in the world into a vast environmental curiosity as well is, for now, little more than the dream of an urban planning consultancy that would gain in fame if the dream became reality.

The idea, which has not so far been officially endorsed by Paris City Hall or the company that operates the Eiffel Tower, would transform the three-floor edifice of more than 300 meters (yards) into something akin to a very tall, and growing, Christmas tree.

Ginger, the consultancy promoting it, issued a statement on Wednesday to defend a project that it said would symbolize the reconciliation of nature and mankind as the world's population heads for nine billion, seven billion of whom would live in urban areas....MORE

From the AP:
Paris: No plans to cover Eiffel Tower with plants
An engineering company says it's preparing plans to blanket the Eiffel Tower in live plants, but Paris City Hall has denied it will happen.In a statement, city hall said it "refutes the existence of any project to vegetalize" the iconic monument.
Wednesday's statement dismissed as "lacking substance" a report in the Le Figaro daily that said Ginger engineering company is working on a euro72 million ($95 million) plan to hang the tower with 600,000 plants for four years.
The report said the company is testing its design on a small model.
Contacted by The Associated Press, officials with Ginger insisted the report is true and that the project is under way...MORE
It's twoo, it's twoo said the spokeswoman
...The hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.