The Eiffel Tower will be repainted with a brush on the occasion of its 130 years – 05/12/2019

Lightning struck the Eiffel Tower, in the afternoon of Wednesday, May 8 last, holidays in France for the anniversary of the capitulation of Nazi Germany. Captured image, very beautiful and symbolic, Bertrand Kulik, violinist and pbadionate about storm photographs. The lightning rod of the tower receives several discharges every year, being the highest point of Paris, without any danger for the visitors.

The Parisian icon par excellence it has been supporting meteorological, political and social storms for 130 years. He survived two world wars and foreign occupation, serious riots and terrorist offensives. He was the protagonist of the milestones of communications and was, before the era of satellites, a strategic military facility.

Next Wednesday, the tower will celebrate its birthday party. It was inaugurated on May 15, 1889, on the occasion of the Universal Exhibition. The metal colossus was the main attraction of the fair and served as a bridge. He raised the obelisk in the honor of George Washington, in the US federal capital, the tallest building in the world. He led the ranking until 1930, when he was overtaken by a skyscraper, the Chrysler Building, in New York City.

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He is currently online, in the theater of Mathurins, a musical, The 300-meter tower (This is how it was originally called), in which is explained the odyssey of Gustav Eiffel. It is to revive the myth for a family audience, French and foreign.

The company that manages the Eiffel Tower (a tourist magnet, with seven million visitors a year) Organized several events to commemorate this anniversary. After finishing the clbades, they will visit the monument, 1,300 schoolchildren from 6 to 12 years old. In the evening, there will be a free concert and from 10 pm an unprecedented light show will be offered. ten minutes, which will be repeated until one o'clock in the morning. To enjoy the show, it will be better to get away from the Trocadero gardens.

Beyond these specific attractions, the most important thing will be the painting of the tower, It will begin shortly. The puddled iron in which it was built is very resistant, almost eternalbut requires periodic maintenance. Since 1889, the structure has been repainted in its entirety 19 times.. This is the key to your longevity. The hue of the color has changed, from ocher to reddish brown or to the current "Brown Eiffel Tower", specially designed for her, darker at the base and brighter at the top, to ensure a uniform optical perception and highlight the tower under the sky and in the profile of Paris.

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It is necessary to repaint to fight against corrosion, the effects of pollution and bird droppings. At the same time, it allows a complete inspection of the structure to detect problem components and replace them.

The last time it was repainted was ten years ago. Traditional techniques have been used, as always. It is forbidden to paint with a gun, remotely. It is handmade and the brushes of all life are used. This allows a balanced distribution of paint in all slots, in all rivets. In 2009, 25 workers intervened, which They used 60 tons of paint (It is estimated that about 15 tons are lost due to erosion between two repaints). 1500 brushes and 1000 leather gloves were used for this task. It took 18 months (without the tower being closed to the public) at an approximate cost of four and a half million dollars. Particular care has been taken in choosing a type of paint with volatile organic components, with a minimum of solvent, respecting the environment.

Details of the next coat of paint will be announced next month at a press conference that will surely spark a keen interest. It is already known that it will be necessary to strip the surface to reduce the thickness of successive layers of paint and the accumulated weight of about 350 tonstoo much for the tower. One of the problems will be to eliminate the lead and avoid its dispersion in the air.

The goal of Paris is that its emblem stays healthy and keeps its magic, generation after generation. The literary, pictorial and cinematographic references badociated with the Eiffel Tower are innumerable. One of the most suggestive definitions was provided by the essayist and philosopher Roland Barthes in 1964. "Look, object, symbol, the tower is all that man puts there, and that all is infinite, "he wrote. The French semiologist, astute badyst of modern society, praised the power and contradictions of the structure. He saw it as "a useless and irreplaceable building, a familiar world and a heroic symbol, an inimitable and incessant object reproduced.This is the pure sign, open to all times, all images and all senses, the unbridled metaphor ".

Eusebio Val – The Vanguardia.

GML