埃菲爾鐵塔或變世界最大“綠樹”

大名鼎鼎的埃菲爾鐵塔明年可能變身爲世界上最大的“綠樹”。媒體日前披露了一項被評價爲“瘋狂”的計劃：用60萬株植物裝飾這座巴黎乃至法國最富盛名的地標性建築。此項大膽的計劃由法國京吉爾集團(Ginger)提出，估計將耗資7200萬歐元。這家專門從事環保工程的企業將與合作伙伴聯合實施這項浩大的工程。巴黎市政府和法國環境部也將參與其中。根據該集團的設計，從2012年6月開始，埃菲爾鐵塔將在4年時間裏身披綠裝，成爲向世人展示法國環保理念的標誌。預計，這60萬株植物將爲鐵塔增重378噸。

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 metres (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 symbolise the reconciliation of nature and mankind as the world's population heads for nine billion, seven billion of whom would live in urban areas.

Either way the project would amount to the most ambitious remake in the life of the tower built by Gustave Eiffel for a world fair in 1889.

The tower, which underwent a lesser revamp with the addition of 10,000 flickering light bulbs a decade ago, draws about seven million visitors a year.

Clad in a new coat of living greenery it could be expected to also provide a perch for many insects and birds, among them perhaps the not-so-welcome pigeons that irritate many city-dwellers.

"Should it not be the duty of engineers to imagine a new future where nature is brought back into the heart of the city," said a statement from Ginger.

For now at least, it still has to convince.

Following the leak in Le Figaro newspaper, the company that operates the tower, SETE, issued a statement saying neither it nor Paris City Hall were associated with the proposal as laid out in the newspaper.

According to Le Figaro newspaper, which leaked many of the technical aspects of the proposal, the idea would be to start work next year, connecting 12 tonnes of tubing to the tower's struts.

Thousands of hemp or sack-cloth bags that would carry soil and a large variety of plants would be added gradually, working from the bottom upwards in the same way as a plant grows, over the second half of 2012.