130 years after its inauguration, why the Eiffel Tower was built – 29/03/2019

Paris and all France are preparing for the celebration of the 130 years of the Eiffel Tower, its most emblematic monument and one of the most important buildings in the world. during March 30th and 31st (birthday) thousands of visitors are expected.

Currently, it receives nearly 7 million visits per year (75% of which are foreigners), making it the The most visited payment monument in the world.

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L & # 39; s history

The Eiffel Tower was inaugurated on March 31, 1889. It was built on the occasion of the tenth World Exhibition held in Paris from May to November of the same year on the occasion of 100 years of the French Revolution. Gustave Eiffel, its creator, was decorated with the Legion of Honor on the narrow platform at the top.

The exhibition attracted millions of visitors and marked a defining moment with new construction designs and industry advances that launched a new phase of important social and cultural changes.

The exhibition occupied 95 hectares: the Campo de Marte, Trocadero Hill and the quays of the Esplanade des Invalides. The Eiffel Tower was the center of attention. It was visited by 1,953,122 people, nearly 12,000 people a day. The public was eager to discover, in addition to the vertigo of the ascent, unseen views of Paris.

At the beginning of its construction, a group of intellectuals – among whom Garnier and Zola stood out – they signed a protest letter addressed to the curator of the exhibition, in which they complained of this "dizzying and ridiculous tower that dominates Paris, like a gigantic dark factory chimney". Composer Charles Gounod and writer Alexandre Dumas Jr. wrote a protest letter for the construction of the tower. the writer Guy de Maupbadant left Paris to express his dissatisfaction.

Although intended to be disarmed, it was bought in 1909 by the French State. There was a strong popular reaction to the idea that the tower, considered as a national symbol, disappears, which made it give up the idea of ​​disarming it.

After completing his function as part of the World Expo, he was used in French Army tests with communication antennas. During 41 years old was the tallest building in the world (300 meters) until it is dethroned by the Chrysler Building (319 meters) in New York, USA. UU., In 1930.

Why it was built

For the 1889 World's Fair, the French Official Journal published a great contest for the project of a 300-meter tower.

The bet was "to study the possibility of getting up on the field of Mars a square-based iron tower 125 meters square and 300 meters high"Selected among 107 projects, it was accepted that of Gustave Eiffel, businessman, Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier, engineers and Stephen Sauvestre, architect.

The two main engineers of the Eiffel company, Nouguier and Koechlin, had the idea of ​​a very high tower, conceived as a great pillar 4 separate columns in the base as one legs that were joined at the top and interconnected by metal beams arranged at regular intervals.

In September 1884, Eiffel patented "a new design to build supports and metal poles that can reach a height of over 300 meters".

Nouguier and Koechlin asked the architect Stephen Sauvestre to work on the formal aspect of the structure they had designed. They wanted the tower to be not only an engineering prodigy, but also an architectural quality that makes it a symbol of the French capital.

How it was built

In its original design, Sauvestre proposed pedestals on masonry-clad feet, monumental arches joining the columns and the first level, large glbad rooms, as well as a bulbous motif for the summit and other ornaments to adorn the walls. structure as a whole

These ideas have not prospered at all and the project has been simplified although some elements such ass large arches of the base that contribute to give it its characteristic appearance.

The tower ended up being a construction of about 18,000 pieces –as a mechanic– Designed and calculated to the millimeter before being built. The arches between them have no structural object, but it is a romantic gesture with aesthetic objectives integrated into the design. As construction continued to rise, construction conditions were dangerous due to the presence of three intermediate floors in the tower.

The leg badembly started on July 1, 1887 to end twenty-one months later. All the elements were prepared in the factory of Levallois-Perret, near Paris, headquarters of the Eiffel company. Teams composed of 300 men led by specialists in the construction of viaducts.

Who was Gustave Eiffel

The tower is not the only creation of Gustave Eiffel. This pbadionate and genuine genius has overcome his own limitations. He was the designer of monuments such as the Dome of the Nice Observatory, the metal structure of the statue of liberty and even the iron bridge of Bordeaux and built hundreds of metal works of all kinds around the world.

He was born in Dijon (France) in 1832. He graduated from the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in 1855, the same year as the first major world exhibition in Paris.

Training Engineer, Eiffel founds and develops its metalworking company, whose greatest achievement was the Eiffel Tower. He devoted the last thirty years of his life to experimental research. He died in Paris at the age of 91 years.