“Can it be that Thom Mayne, the architect of confrontation, has gone soft? His acclaimed design for Paris’s tallest office building, chosen on Dec. 1, is an elegant silhouette draped in a diaphanous skin, a far cry from the sharp corners, violent eruptions and fragmented forms that led some to call him the architect of dislocation. … He said: ‘Do I provoke as a method of investigation? Of course. That’s the essence of architecture. Do I do it with gusto? I do. At the same time, do I listen? My clients would tell you I’m a farm boy from Tipton, Ind.’ “