The Eiffel TowerThe Eiffel tower is the trademark of Paris,France. With the tower being 984ft, its kind of hard not to noticeit.
The tower has a restaurant, radio and television transmitterand more. Gustave A. Eiffel created the tower to enter it in theworlds fair. It was made with wrought iron and had medium wind resistance. Gustave started in 1889 and completed in 1910. Gustave A.
Eiffel created the Eiffel Tower. Eiffel oversaw the construction with such success that in 1866 he foundedhis own company and soon became known for his wrought iron structures. Starting in 1872 he attracted foreign contracts, and in 1877 he createdover the Douro River in Porto, Portugal, a steel arch bridge 525 ft inheight. The Eiffel Tower is a landmark and an earlyexample of wrought-iron construction on a gigantic scale. It wasdesigned and built by the French civil engineer Gustave Alexandre Eiffelfor the Paris World’s Fair of 1889.
The tower, without its modernbroadcasting antennae, is 984 ft high. The lower section consistsof four immense arched legs set on masonry piers. The legs curveinward until they unite in a single tapered tower. Platforms, eachwith an observation deck, are at three levels; on the first is also a restaurant. The tower, constructed of about 7000 tons of iron, has stairs and elevators. A meteorological station, a radio communications station, and a televisiontransmission antenna, as well as a suite of rooms that were used by Eiffelare located near the top of the tower.
Eiffel’s work combined expert craftsmanshipand graceful design. Completed in 1884, it was for a time the highestbridge in the world, winning Eiffel’s factory a worldwide reputation forexcellence. Eiffel cast Frederic Auguste Bartholdi’s colossal statueLiberty Enlightening the World, which was dedicated in New York in 1886. Soon after, he began work on his greatest project, the building of theEiffel Tower. It was completed in 1889 for the celebration of thecentennial of the French Revolution (1789-1799).
Eiffel was not apopular man when he started building the huge steel-frame tower that wouldoverlook Paris. The structure was just too different and the critics didn’tlike it at all. In 1887, the leading artists of Paris signed a petitionto have what they regarded as a monstrosity torn down immediately. Fortunately for Paris, their call was ignored. And though Parisians didn’tlike it at first, they began to grow fond of the structure they initiallycalled a Cyclops and a skeleton. The Eiffel Tower was completed in1889, just in time to show off for the World’s Fair, being held that yearin Paris.
The tower was also a sign of things to come. Eiffel wastaking full advantage of a new building material, structural steel. Withit he took the first step in creating what would become the modern skyscraper. The imposing tower-constructed of 7,000tons of iron in 18,000 parts held together by 2,500,000 rivets rises toa height of 984 ft and continues to dominate the Paris skyline. Inthe early 1890s Eiffel gave up the daily management of his business andbecame absorbed in the new science of aerodynamics.
Emile Nouguier and Maurice Koechlin, thetwo chief engineers in Eiffel’s company, had the idea for a very tall towerin June 1884. It was to be designed like a large pylon with four columnsof lattice work girders, separated at the base and coming together at thetop, and joined to each other by more metal girders at regular intervals. The company had by this time mastered perfectly the principle of buildingbridge supports. The tower project was a bold extension of this principleup to a height of 300 meters, equivalent to the symbolic figure of 1000ft.
On September 18 1884 Eiffel registered a patent “for a new figurationallowing the construction of metal supports and pylons capable of exceedinga height of 300 meters”. Eiffels clockwork precision had enabledhim not only to meet his deadline, but to build the structure with theloss of only one life, that of a worker who fell from the first platformwhile apparently showing off for his girlfriend after the bell had soundedending the working day. The Eiffel tower is the trademark for Paris. Even though The people of Paris didnt like the tower, they got to likeit, so did the tourist. Then they found out about the good transmittingwith the radio and the television. Now the Eiffel tower is a majortourist attraction, and one of the best standing structures in the world.
