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The Eiffel Tower is a metal tower in the center of Paris, its most
recognizable architectural landmark. Named after the chief designer
Gustave Eiffel; Eiffel himself called it simply the "300-meter tower"
(tour de 300 mètres).
The tower, which later became a symbol of
Paris, was built in 1889 and was originally conceived as a temporary
structure that served as the entrance arch to the Paris World Exhibition
of 1889.
The Eiffel Tower is called the most visited paid and the
most photographed attraction in the world.
Selection and preparation of the project
The World Exhibition of
1889 was held in Paris and was timed to coincide with the centenary of
the French Revolution. The Paris city administration approached famous
French engineers with an offer to take part in an architectural
competition. At such a competition, it was necessary to create a
structure that visibly demonstrates the engineering and technological
achievements of the country.
Including such a proposal came to
the engineering office of Gustave Eiffel. Eiffel himself did not have a
ready idea, but, rummaging through the deferred projects, he found a
sketch of a high-rise tower, which was made by his employee Maurice
Koechlen (fr.) Russian. (or Köchlen in the German pronunciation).
Another employee, Emile Nougier (fr.) Russian, then took part in
finalizing the project. Drawings of a 300-meter iron tower were offered
for competition. Previously, on September 18, 1884, Gustave Eiffel
receives a joint patent for the project with his employees, and
subsequently redeems the exclusive right from them.
The
all-French competition of architectural and engineering projects, which
were supposed to determine the architectural appearance of the future
World Exhibition, started on May 1, 1886. 107 applicants took part in
the competition, most of which, to one degree or another, repeated the
tower project proposed by Eiffel. Various extravagant ideas were also
under consideration, among which, for example, a giant guillotine, which
was supposed to remind of the French Revolution. Another proposal was a
stone tower, but calculations and past experience have shown that it
would be very difficult to build a stone structure that would be even
higher than the 169-meter Washington Monument, the construction of which
had cost the huge efforts of the United States several years before.
The Eiffel project becomes one of the four winners, and then the
engineer makes final changes to it, finding a compromise between the
original purely engineering design scheme and the decorative version. In
the end, the committee settles on the Eiffel plan. Having won the first
prize of the competition, Eiffel enthusiastically exclaimed: "France
will be the only country with a 300-meter flagpole!"
The original
design by Nouguier and Coechelin was too "dry" in aesthetic terms and
did not meet the requirements put forward for the buildings of the World
Exhibition in Paris, the architecture of which should have been more
refined. To make the tower more in line with the tastes of the demanding
Parisian public, the architect Stephan Sauvestre was commissioned to
work on its artistic appearance. He proposed sheathing the basement
supports of the tower with stone, linking its supports and the platform
of the first floor with the help of majestic arches, which would
simultaneously become the main entrance to the exhibition, placing
spacious glazed halls on the floors of the tower, giving the top of the
tower a rounded shape and using various decorative elements to decorate
it. .
In January 1887, the Eiffel, the state and the municipality
of Paris signed an agreement according to which the Eiffel was granted
for personal use the operating lease of the tower for a period of 25
years, and also provided for the payment of a cash subsidy in the amount
of 1.5 million gold francs, which amounted to 25% of all construction
costs. towers. On December 31, 1888, in order to raise the missing
funds, a joint-stock company was created with an authorized fund of 5
million francs. Half of this amount is the funds contributed by three
banks, the second half is the personal funds of Eiffel himself.
The final construction budget amounted to 7.8 million francs. The tower
paid off during the period of the exhibition, and its subsequent
operation turned out to be a very profitable business.
Construction
Construction work for two years, two months and five
days (from January 28, 1887 to March 31, 1889) was carried out by 300
workers. Record-breaking construction times were facilitated by
extremely high quality drawings showing the exact dimensions of 18,038
metal parts, for the assembly of which 2.5 million rivets were used.
To complete the tower on time, Eiffel used, for the most part,
prefabricated parts. The rivet holes were pre-drilled at the intended
locations, and two-thirds of the 2.5 million rivets were pre-installed.
None of the prepared beams weighed more than 3 tons, which made it very
easy to lift the metal parts to the intended places. In the beginning,
high cranes were used, and when the structure outgrew them in height,
mobile cranes specially designed by Eiffel picked up the work. They
moved along the rails laid for future elevators. The difficulty was that
the lifting device had to move along the masts of the tower along a
curved path with a changing radius of curvature. The first elevators on
the tower were powered by hydraulic pumps. Up to our time, two historic
elevators of the company "Fives-Lille", installed in 1899 in the eastern
and western supports of the tower, are used. Since 1983, their operation
has been provided by an electric motor, and the hydraulic pumps have
been preserved and are available for inspection.
The second and
third floors of the tower were connected by a vertical elevator created
by the engineer Léon Edoux (fr. Léon Édoux; Eiffel's classmate at the
Central Higher Technical School). This elevator consisted of two
mutually equalizing cabins. The upper cabin was raised using a hydraulic
cylinder with a stroke length of 78 meters. The lower cabin at the same
time served as a counterweight. Halfway to the site, at a height of 175
m from the ground, passengers had to transfer to another elevator. Water
tanks installed on the floors provided the necessary hydraulic pressure.
In 1983, this lift, which could not operate in winter, was replaced by
an electric Otis brand lift, consisting of four cabins and providing a
direct connection between the two floors.
The construction of the
tower required special attention to the safety issues of continuous
work, which became Eiffel's greatest concern. During the construction
work there were no fatal accidents, which was a significant achievement
for that time.
When arranging pits for the tower supports, due to
the proximity of the Seine River, Eiffel resorted to the method that he
introduced in the construction of bridges. In each of the 16 foundation
caissons there was a working space, into which air was pumped under
pressure. Due to the increased pressure, groundwater could not seep into
it, and workers could excavate and move the soil without interference.
One of the most difficult problems for Eiffel was the first
platform. Massive wooden scaffolding had to support 4 inclined supports
and huge beams of the first platform. Four inclined supports rested on
sand-filled metal cylinders. The sand could be released gradually and
thus the supports could be set at the correct slope. Additional
hydraulic lifts in the foundations of the piers made it possible to
finally adjust the position of the four inclined piers, which could thus
be precisely adjusted to the iron reinforcement of the first platform.
Once the platform was perfectly level, it was attached to the ramps
and the lifts were removed. Then construction continued on the tower
itself. The work progressed slowly but steadily. She caused the
Parisians, who saw the tower growing into the sky, surprise and
admiration. On March 31, 1889, less than 26 months after the start of
digging pits, Eiffel was able to invite several more or less physically
strong officials to the first ascent of 1710 steps.
After the exhibition
The original contract with Eiffel was for the
dismantling of the tower 20 years after it was built.
The
construction was a stunning and immediate success. Over the six months
of the exhibition, more than 2 million visitors came to see the Iron
Lady. By the end of the year, three-quarters of all construction costs
had been recovered.
However, the creative intelligentsia of Paris
and France were outraged by the daring project of the Eiffel, and,
starting from the very beginning of construction, they sent indignation
and demands to the Paris City Hall to stop the construction of the
tower. Writers and artists feared that the metal structure would
overwhelm the architecture of the city, violate the unique style of the
capital, which has evolved over the centuries.
It is known that
in 1887, 300 writers and artists (among them Alexandre Dumas son, Guy de
Maupassant and the composer Charles Gounod) protested against the
municipality, describing the construction as “useless and monstrous”, as
“a ridiculous tower dominating Paris, like a giant factory chimney,”
adding:
For 20 years, we will be forced to look at the disgusting
shadow of the hated column of iron and screws, stretching over the city
like an ink blot.
There is a historical anecdote that a certain
writer (William Morris or Guy de Maupassant) regularly dined at the
restaurant on the first level of the tower. When asked why he was doing
this if he didn’t like the tower, the writer replied: “This is the only
place in all of vast Paris where it is not visible.”
In October
1898, Eugene Ducrete conducted the first telegraph session between the
Eiffel Tower and the Pantheon, the distance between which is 4 km. In
1903, General Ferrier, a pioneer in the field of wireless telegraphy,
applied it to his experiments. It so happened that the tower was left at
first for military purposes.
Since 1906, a radio station has been
permanently placed on the tower. In 1907, a six-meter electric clock
designed by the Russian engineer Romeiko-Gurko was installed on the
second floor of the tower.
Even during the construction on the
third tier of the tower, a meteorological laboratory was created. In
1908, the first high-altitude meteorological laboratory was organized on
its basis. It existed for a long time and during its work a significant
array of statistical data was accumulated.
January 1, 1910 Eiffel
extends the lease of the tower for a period of seventy years. In 1914,
radio interception allowed General Gallieni to organize a counterattack
on the Marne during the First World War.
On November 11, 1918,
the text of a radiogram from the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied
Forces, Marshal Foch, was announced from the tower to all the fighting
allied forces about the signing of the Compiègne truce, which put an end
to the bloodshed of the First World War.
In 1921, the first
direct radio transmission from the Eiffel Tower took place. Broadcast
was broadcast, which became possible due to the installation of special
antennas on the tower. Since 1922, a radio program began to appear
regularly, which was called the Eiffel Tower. In 1925, the first
attempts were made to relay a television signal from the tower. The
transmission of regular television programs began in 1935. Since 1957, a
television antenna has been located on the tower, increasing the height
of the steel structure to 320.75 m. In addition to it, several dozen
linear and parabolic antennas have been installed on the tower that
relay various radio and television programs.
During the German occupation, the elevator drive was deliberately
damaged just before the arrival of Adolf Hitler in 1940. Due to the war,
it was impossible to restore the drive. While visiting Paris, Hitler was
never able to get upstairs. However, a few hours after the liberation of
Paris, the elevator drive started working again.
In the summer of
1944, during the battles for the capital of France, American pilot
William Overstreet, piloting a Mustang fighter, flew under the arches of
the Eiffel Tower and shot down a German Messerschmitt Bf 109. Avoiding
anti-aircraft fire at low level, the American returned to his own,
plotting a course over the Seine.
In August 1944, as the Allies
were closing in on Paris, Hitler ordered that Colonel General Dietrich
von Choltitz, military commander of the Greater Paris district and head
of the garrison, destroy the Eiffel Tower along with the rest of the
city's landmarks. However, von Choltitz disobeyed the order.
Anniversary Celebrations
On May 15, 2019, the 130th anniversary of
the Eiffel Tower was solemnly celebrated in Paris. The media part of the
holiday was preceded by a charity tour for schoolchildren: by the
decision of the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, about 1,300 boys and girls
from all over the country were able to view the world landmark for free
that day. In the evening at 20:30, the songs of the French singer and
composer Jeanne Added sounded from the stage. After dark, the contours
of the tower were illuminated by a colorful light show using laser
projectors. Under a potpourri of fashionable French melodies, the life
story of the famous monument was told. The festive performance, directed
by Bruno Seilier, was repeated three times that evening (every hour from
10:00 pm). The last session was held in silence: this was done to
protect the peace of the residents of nearby houses.
Currently
The tower is available for visits every day. For public access to the
top, there are four points for selling tickets and passing inside the
building: north, south, west and east. There are two categories of
excursions: to the second tier for 16 euros and to the very top for 25
euros. Children and the disabled are given discounts on entrance
tickets.
Buffets are provided on the first and second floors of
the tower, where ordinary tourists can buy a slice of pizza and a glass
of juice for 7.5 euros. Also on the first tier of the tower (58 meters
above the ground) there is a restaurant, which is called 58 Tour Eiffel.
A typical two-course lunch will cost you 18 euros here. Above, on the
2nd floor, there is a more expensive restaurant - Le Jules Verne
restaurant (a modest lunch costs about 85 euros per person). The third
floor at the top of the tower is occupied by the Champagne Bar, where
one glass of sparkling drink costs 10 euros.
Location
The tower was erected on the Champ de Mars opposite the
Jena bridge across the river Seine, Quai Branly. On the map of the Paris
metro station: Bir-Hakeim.
Height
The Eiffel Tower was
originally 300.65 meters above ground level. The height together with
the new antenna is 330 meters (2022).
For more than 40 years, the
Eiffel Tower was the tallest building in the world, almost 2 times
higher than the tallest buildings in the world of that time - the
pyramids of Cheops (146.6 m), Cologne (157 m) and Ulm Cathedral (161 m),
- until In 1930, it was not surpassed by the Chrysler Building in New
York.
Color
Throughout its history, the tower has repeatedly
changed the color of its painting - from yellow to red-brown. In recent
decades, the Eiffel Tower has been invariably painted in the so-called
"brown-eiffel" - an officially patented color close to the natural shade
of bronze.
The Iron Lady resists the ravages of time with 57 tons
of paint that needs to be renewed every 7 years.
Design features
The mass of the metal structure is about 7300 tons. The foundation is
made of concrete blocks. The fluctuations of the tower during storms do
not exceed 15 cm.
The lower floor is a pyramid (129.3 m each side
at the base), formed by 4 columns, connected at a height of 57.63 m by
an arched vault; the first platform of the Eiffel Tower rests on the
vault. The platform is a square (65 meters across).
On this
platform rises the second pyramid-tower, also formed by 4 columns,
connected by a vault, on which is located (at a height of 115.73 m) the
second platform (a square 35 m in diameter).
Four columns rising
on the second platform, pyramidally approaching and gradually
intertwining, form a colossal pyramidal column (190 m), bearing the
third platform (at a height of 276.13 m), also square (16.5 m in
diameter); a lighthouse with a dome rises on it, above which there is a
platform (1.4 m in diameter) at a height of 300 m.
Stairs (1792
steps) and elevators lead to the tower.
Restaurant halls were
erected on the first platform; on the second platform were tanks with
engine oil for a hydraulic lifting machine (elevator) and a restaurant
in a glass gallery. The third platform housed the astronomical and
meteorological observatories and the physics office.
The Eiffel
Tower is not particularly affected by the wind. Even the strongest wind
that happened in Paris (about 180 km / h) deflected the top of the tower
by only 12 cm. The Sun acts on it much more strongly: the sunny side of
the tower expands from the heat so that the top deviates to the side by
18 cm.
Form
The erected tower shook with a bold decision of
its form. Eiffel was severely criticized for the project and
simultaneously accused of trying to create something artistic and
non-artistic.
Together with his engineers, specialists in bridge
construction, Eiffel was engaged in calculations of wind force, knowing
full well that if they were building the tallest structure in the world,
then first of all they must make sure that it was resistant to wind
loads. In an interview with Le Temps on February 14, 1887, Eiffel
remarked:
Why such a strange shape? wind loads. I believe that the
curvature of the four outer edges of the monument is dictated by both
mathematical calculations and aesthetic considerations.
translated
from the French newspaper Le Temps, February 14, 1887
inscriptions
Under the first balcony, on all four sides of the
parapet are engraved the names of 72 outstanding French scientists and
engineers, as well as those who made a special contribution to the
creation of Gustave Eiffel. These inscriptions appeared at the beginning
of the 20th century and were restored in 1986-1987 by the Société
Nouvelle d'exploitation de la Tour Eiffel company, hired by the city
hall to operate the Eiffel Tower. The tower itself is the property of
the city of Paris.
The Eiffel Tower was first illuminated on its opening day in 1889.
Then it consisted of 10 thousand gas lamps, two searchlights and a
lighthouse mounted on top, the light of which was painted in blue, white
and red - the colors of the national flag of France. In 1900, electric
lamps appeared on the structures of the Iron Lady. And the current
golden lighting was first turned on on December 31, 1985[28]. In 1925,
André Citroën placed an advertisement on the tower, which he called "The
Eiffel Tower on fire." About 125,000 light bulbs were installed on the
tower. One after another, ten images flashed on the tower: the
silhouette of the Eiffel Tower, starry rain, the flight of comets, the
signs of the Zodiac, the year the tower was built, the current year,
and, finally, the name Citroen. This promotion lasted until 1934 and the
tower was the tallest advertising space in the world.
In the
summer of 2003, the tower was "dressed" in a new lighting attire. In a
few months, a team of 30 high-altitude workers entangled the tower
structures with 40 kilometers of wires and installed 20,000 light bulbs,
made to order from one of the French companies. The new illumination,
which cost 4.6 million euros, was reminiscent of the one that was first
switched on on the tower on the night of the New Year 2000, when the
tower, usually illuminated by golden yellow lanterns, in a matter of
seconds dressed in a fabulous glow winking with silvery lights.
From July 1 to December 31, 2008, when France held the presidency of the
EU, blue lighting with stars (reminiscent of the flag of Europe) worked
on the tower.
Tower painting
One of the main ways to protect a metal tower from
destruction due to corrosion is to paint the surface of the elements
that form the tower. This process takes 18 months and is carried out by
a team of 25 highly skilled workers. The structure is carefully
inspected beforehand, and the areas where the anti-corrosion coating is
especially badly damaged are cleaned and covered with a new layer of
protection. The rest of the tower surface is cleaned with high pressure
steam. Then the whole structure is painted in two layers. This consumes
about 60 tons of paint.
The safety of workers and visitors is
ensured by a system of insurances, as well as "safety nets" that protect
against falling flakes of old paint and drops of fresh paint.
In
the process of applying an anti-corrosion coating, the technical
condition of the structure is also inspected, and worn elements are
replaced.
Energy supply
A green modification project for the
Eiffel Tower is currently underway. About half of the hot water needs of
the two pavilions are provided by a 10 m2 array of solar thermal panels
and heat pumps. Energy-saving LED lighting and a rainwater collection
and reuse system were also installed on the tower. In February 2015,
Urban Green Energy installed two wind turbines capable of generating
10,000 kWh of electricity per year, equivalent to the energy used by a
commercial space on the ground floor of the Eiffel Tower.
On February 4, 1912, the Austrian tailor Franz Reichelt jumped from
the 60-meter height of the first level of the Eiffel Tower, wearing a
parachute cape of his own design on his back. The parachute did not
open, and the inventor crashed to death.
In January 1956, a sudden
fire broke out and damaged the upper part of the structure.
In 2002,
the number of visitors to the tower exceeded 200 million.
In the
winter of 2004/2005, an ice skating rink was filled for the first time
on the lower platform of the Eiffel Tower to advertise Paris as a
candidate for hosting the 2012 Summer Olympics. Since then, the ice rink
on the ground floor of the tower has been flooded regularly.
The last
fire occurred on July 22, 2003.
The last case of suicide dates back
to June 25, 2012.
The last (false) report about the mining of the
tower dates back to March 30, 2013.
The Eiffel Tower was ranked
number one in a travel company's list of the most disappointing tourist
attractions in 2007. The Eiffel Tower, according to the survey,
expressed disappointment over a quarter of those surveyed: they said
that it was too crowded to enjoy the view.
In the world there are
many copies of the Eiffel Tower of various sizes.
Tower scam
For 83 years of existence, the famous tower was sold - in all its form -
at least two dozen times.
In 1925, the swindler Viktor Lustig managed
to "sell" the tower twice for scrap.
In 1954, a Swedish citizen, who
introduced himself as the general director of a joint-stock company,
offered to cover the tower with anti-corrosion paint. Having received a
loan to buy 50 tons of dye, he disappeared in an unknown direction.
In 1960, the English greengrocer David Sams sold the Eiffel Tower to a
Dutch firm as scrap metal. He managed to prove (with the help of false
documents) that he was instructed by the Parisian municipality to
dismantle the tower. As a result, the Englishman went to jail, and the
company was left without its millions.
For a long time, tickets were
sold with two perforated corners. The controllers at the foot of the
tower tore off one corner and let the sightseer go to the elevator
inside one of the “legs” of the tower, which takes you to the 1st
platform. There was a ticket office on this site where you could buy a
ticket to climb to the very top of the tower (in an elevator located
along the central axis of the entire structure). But, if you do not buy
a second ticket, but present the original ticket (with one corner
already torn off at the bottom), then the controllers would tear off the
second corner, and without any additional costs (for the second ticket)
you could go upstairs.