Tour First
office skyscraper in La Défense's Courbevoie
Tour First (previously known as Tour UAP between 1974 and 1998, and as Tour Axa between 1998 and 2007) is an office skyscraper in the La Défense business district of the metropolitan area of Paris. Built in 1974, the tower stands at 231 m (758 ft) tall with 52 floors and is the current second tallest building in France.
History
The tower was built in 1974 by Bouygues for the Union des assurances de Paris (UAP) insurance company. The building was 159 m (522 ft) at that time. Its ground shape was in the form of a three-pointed star whose branches were separated each by a 120° angle. This particular shape was chosen to symbolize the merger of the three French insurance companies that were at the origin of UAP. The tower was renamed Tour Axa when UAP was bought by the Axa insurance company in 1996.
Large-scale renovation of the tower began in 2007 and was completed in 2011. The exterior appearance of the building was completely changed, with extra height added to the tower. The renovated tower, now known as Tour First, is 225 m (738 ft) at roof height, and 231 m (758 ft) including its spire, with a total floor space of 86,707 m2 (933,310 sq ft). It is currently the tallest skyscraper in France, only surpassed in height by the Eiffel Tower.
“Tour First” enters the record as office skyscraper in La Défense's Courbevoie. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Tour, First and office can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Tour First” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Tour, First and office provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1509747. Authority coordinates are 48.889, 2.252. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1974, 1998, 2007 and 1996.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Tour First”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Tour First primary sources, Tour First archive and Tour research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Tour First” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.