1889 the centenarian
of the French revolution
It is the 3rd Republics duty to celebrate
this event with blaze and splendour: a universal exhibition is to take place less than 11
years after the previous exhibition that assisted to the edification of the 1st
Palace of the Trocadero.
It has to be built bigger: A tower, the biggest it
can be: It will measure 300 meters (320 including the modern antennas)
We will call upon the
engineer Eiffel*, pioneer and master of steel architecture in France. World renown, he had
already constructed the Machines gallery in 1867 and several bridges that can still be
admired today, including one near Porto (1878), the Garabit viaduct in the Cantal (1882
– 1884), and also the metallic framework of the statue of Liberty in New York (1886)
*Gustav Eiffel born in Dijon in 1832 died in 1923 in Paris. |
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The building of the site will last 26 months in order for it to be ready
for the 29th of March 1889.
7175 tonnes of iron were used under the forms of
girders assembled by 2,5 millions rivets.
The four oblique pillars lie on four concrete
slabs of 26 meters squared of surface area and of 9–12 meters of depth each. 3 floors
were accomplished at 57 meters, 115 meters and 276 meters in height, 1710 steps and lifts
together, lead to the summit. Shops and restaurants occupy the floors, and on the top
floor exists an apartment, which Eiffel reserved for himself.
The strongest and least heavy iron replaces the
cast iron and permits this achievement. It will be replaced by steel that will then head
the era of sky scrapers: The Empire State building will secure new heights, compared with
the ‘Vieille Dame’ but will never take away from the fame of the Eiffel Tower. |
The Tower, foreseen as an
ephemeral monument for the duration of the exhibition became the world-wide emblem of
Paris. More than 100 years later it attracts approximately 6 million visitors per annum,
which in memory, carry its image to the five continents. |
