Pierre Cardin Drops Plan for Tower in Venice

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After years of delays and public criticism, fashion designer Pierre Cardin is dropping plans for an elaborate 244-meter-tall tower in Venice.

"The decision was inevitable after over two years since presenting the initiative we could not get formal approval on a deal with all public bodies involved," Mr. Cardin's nephew Rodrigo Basilicati told the Italian press.

The design for the tower, dubbed Palais Lumière (Palace of Light), featured three vertical fins that would be interconnected by six horizontal discs. Mr. Cardin said the design was inspired by "three flowers in a vase."

The site for the tower, was located on the mainland in former industrial area of Porto Marghera. Plans called for 284 apartments, as well as a shopping center, hotel, theater and offices.

"We chose this apparently ugly and difficult location because we hope that it will convince people that Porto Marghera can enter a new chapter," Mr. Basilicati, one of the architects of the design, told reporters.

Some civic leaders hoped it would develop as the Eiffel Tower of Venice. But many protested the project, claiming it would destroy the views of Venice, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

"Venetians and Italians are tired of seeing Venice abused by the vast cruise ships and mounting examples of the crudest commercialism," Anna Somers Cocks wrote in the Arts Newspaper.

But Mr. Cardin defended the design in the press, saying it would revitalize the area.

"I proposed something for an industrial, scandalous part of Venice that in the past 70 years I have never seen change!" Mr. Cardin told Disegno Daily last year. "Some people are pro and some are not: that's normal. In my life people have always been scandalized by my creations."