The Eiffel Tower

Gustave Eiffel’s wrought-iron tower is built for the 1889 Exposition Universelle and, at 300 metres, is the tallest structure in the world. Many artists protested against the ugly iron.

Engineering became an aesthetic in its own right – the tower was meant to be demolished but became the symbol of Paris.

The 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris was to celebrate the centenary of the French Revolution and display France’s technical prowess. Two engineers in Gustave Eiffel’s firm, Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, had already sketched a three-hundred-metre iron tower in 1884, and the architect Stephen Sauvestre gave it its arches and form. Eiffel bought the rights and pursued the project in his own name. He was already known for railway bridges and viaducts, such as the Garabit Viaduct in southern France, and for the internal frame of the Statue of Liberty in New York. When the state announced a competition in 1886 his proposal won, and he himself bore a large part of the cost in return for the right to the revenue.

The foundations were laid at the beginning of 1887 and the tower was completed in March 1889, after just over two years. It is built of wrought iron in thousands of prefabricated parts, which were drawn precisely in Eiffel’s workshops outside Paris and riveted together on site. Its form is determined mainly by wind load; the four legs curve so that the wind is carried down into the foundations. Construction was carefully planned, and work at height could proceed quickly because the parts fitted. To take visitors up, lifts were installed that follow the incline of the legs, which was a technically difficult task. The tower was originally painted reddish brown and has since been repainted at regular intervals.

In February 1887 a letter of protest against the tower was published, signed by writers, composers and architects, among them Guy de Maupassant, Charles Gounod and Charles Garnier, who had designed the Paris Opéra. They saw the tower as a blot on the city. The tower was only permitted to stand for twenty years, but Eiffel made it indispensable for scientific experiments and for the new radio technology, and during the First World War its antennas were important to the military. It was the tallest structure in the world until 1930. In Stockholm, at about the same time, the Telephone Tower was erected at Brunkebergstorg, an iron tower carrying thousands of telephone lines, showing that the engineering of iron also left its mark on Nordic cities.