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The city of Paris is planning on building new towers. Is this an initiative in the line of sustainable development ? The answer is complex, as are all those relating to ecology.

As of now, the Paris experience has been exemplified by the Montparnasse tower, which has mangled the totality of the capital’s most beautiful perspectives and has destroyed the magic of this Parisian district along with its urban plan. Other achievements include a tower dedicated to business offices, boulevard Morland, a few steps away from the Notre Dame cathedral: the Jussieu tower, famous for its asbestos; the 15th century towers, which needs refurbishing; also the towers from La Défense, an important business district which can be seen from the Tuileries as if under your nose...

When visiting the world, not one city has succeeded to maintain its sacred character, built throughout centuries because we were then giving time to time.

Is this a fatality? Does it mean being opposed to progress to be questioning or to be opposing the building of residential or office towers?

Let us understand the reasons justifying the high rise building: prices of building-sites, their scarcity, cars devouring all space, and efficacy of verticality for business buildings: Only economical reasons, none related to the quality of the citizen’s life. Elected members have their short term worries, property developers their financial obligations, architects their aesthetic concepts. Yet, how come Paris’ first arrondissement, just as dense in population as the district of La Défense, manages room for two big parks: the Tuileries and the Palais Royal, and yet none of its buildings is higher than 7 levels?

How does this relate to sustainable development ? very directly. Skyscrapers were, during the early 20th century, the symbol of triumphant modernity. Weren’t they also telling us about the actors’ inability to escape from the constraints of urban development?

Building residential towers has not given proof of providing appropriate living spaces. No doubt building office towers was an unavoidable stage at the time, even if it seems out-of-date today: more than thirty years ago, the question was already addressed by economists and urbanists, and it remains up-to-date. At the time of internet, video-conferencing and portable phones, along with the obligation to reduce costly and exhausting moves, couldn’t we think over the urban design a little more, trying to escape from economic fatality?

Sacred Planet does not have any ready-made answer to this question, but will assign the file to its experts in order to evaluate and compare the different experimentations and urban solutions throughout the world.

According to the great Chinese philosopher Sen Fu (late 19th Century), there was once a great Chinese emperor who had a passion for well ripened melons. And he had a problem: Even the greatest Emperor could not get ripe melons in Winter. So, each year, he was patiently waiting for the summer.

He had a very skilled gardener who had an idea: Not too far away, there was a steep hill with one side well exposed to the South. He told the Emperor: "Your revered Highness (or whatever was the proper address), let me install greenhouses on that hill. I am sure that, with the sun exposure it has, I can ripen melons in Winter." And the Emperor, who was an open mind and loved innovation and enterprise, let him do it. Let all readers of Sacred Planet learn from our Experts: glass was invented some 3,000 years ago, and the invention of green houses has been lost in the night of times, as the French say.

So it was done: the following year, the gardener, full of pride, brought ripe melons to his Majesty as early as February and told him that next year, he would get them all year round. He could not get them earlier because an order of melon seeds had been, ah, held back by Chinese red tape.

This gave the Emperor an idea: He summoned the seven hundred wisest Mandarins who formed the highest level of his Council (and who cost him a fortune in pensions, overheads, pretty girls and delicacies.) And he asked them:

"Esteemed Members of my Imperial Council, I want you to study this question: Is it possible for melons to ripen in Winter?"

The wise Mandarins immediately convened, formed various committees, initiated bibliographic researches, questioned the writings of Confucius, Lao-Tse, Chen-Yi, Dong Zhong-Shu, Sun Tsu, and many many others. They wrote notes, preliminary reports, and memorandums, and finally dissertations in eight iambs as per formal Mandarin rule which are as stringent as the Rule of the Three Units in French 17th Century dramatic art. They produced thousands of pages beautifully written in ideograms, using the most expensive peacock feathers for pens. And they still didn't have an answer.

So the Emperor told them: "You worked so hard, you deserve a rest. Come with me for a walk in the open air." And he had then driven to the Hill of the Melons, in 15 beautiful carriages. And they walked in the garden and were surrounded with nice melons smelling deliciously, but they still went on discussing and debating.

So the Emperor picked up a perfectly ripened melon and put it under the nose of the five most eminent Mandarins and asked them: "Tell me, what is this?".

And then, he had a surprise:

They could not recognize a melon.

All their lives, they had seen melons only once they were in their plates, peeled and cut in slices...

So the emperor, who had an open mind and loved innovation and enterprise, but also believed in tax cutting and in keeping overheads under control, had them all buried alive.

Morality for Sacred Planet: When planning for the Earth's survival, let us stick to facts and proven experience, and stay away from preconceived ideas, especially the ones considered as official authority by the Mand... I mean the Media.

André Teissier du Cros