The story behind the Eiffel Tower

It may be difficult for people today to believe that when the idea of ??the Eiffel Tower was proposed in the late 1800s, many Parisians and even many French people did not think so. Disapprove. The following story is about one of the most iconic buildings on earth - the Eiffel Tower.

Revolutionary Idea

In 1885, French officials began planning to hold a Great Exposition in 1889 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the victory of the French Revolution. They wanted to build a monument that would represent the honor of France.

At that time, the stone Washington Monument had just been completed. With a height of 557 feet, this monument became the tallest building in the world at the time. The French hope to surpass this record by building a 1,000-foot tower in the center of Paris. Now, all that needs to be done is to find the design and architect of this tower.

Open selection

On May 2, 1886, the French government announced a design competition, and French engineers and architects were invited to participate in the study of erecting a design at Champ de Mars. Possibility of tower with base of 125 m2 and height of 300 m.

No matter what idea is proposed by the contestants, their design must meet the following two conditions:

1. The building can be used to raise funds. In other words, it must be able to attract enough tourists to buy tickets to visit, and the funds generated can maintain the building itself.

2. This is a temporary building that can be easily dismantled after the expo.

No competition

More than 100 designs entered the competition before the May 18th deadline. Most of them are very traditional, others are very weird. Some people proposed to build a huge guillotine; some proposed to erect a 1,000-foot sprinkler to irrigate the entire Paris during the dry season; others proposed to install a huge electric light on the top of the tower to illuminate the entire Paris 8 times, you can read newspapers conveniently.

The fact is that none of the proposals passed. Just when the competition was announced, a 53-year-old construction engineer, Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, had already begun thinking about using metal to build a great building for France.

A few weeks ago, he had met with a French minister named Edouard Lockroy and submitted his prepared plan-an iron tower. Eiffel produced 5,329 mechanical drawings describing the 18,038 different parts that would be used. Lockroy was so enamored with Eiffel's design that he secretly manipulated the design competition to make Eiffel's design win.

Joint venture construction

In January 1887, Eiffel signed a contract with the French government and the Paris municipal government. Eiffel's engineering firm will pay $1.3 million of the total construction budget of $1.6 million. In exchange, Eiffel will receive revenue from the tower during the exposition and for the next 20 years. (By this time the government had agreed to keep the tower after the fair.) All ownership would then be transferred to the city of Paris, which could dismantle the tower if it wished.

Unlike other public monuments, the Eiffel Tower was designed to make money from the beginning. If you want to take the elevator or stairs to the first floor, you need to pay 2 francs; if you want to go all the way to the top, you need to pay 5 francs (cheaper on Sundays). This is just the beginning. Restaurants, cafes, and shops are also planned to be opened on the first floor; a post office, telephone exchange, bakery, and gallery are planned to be opened on the second floor. The tower is designed to accommodate 10,416 paying tourists at the same time.

Breaking ground

Construction began on January 26. At this time, time was running out. There were only two years until the opening of the fair, and Eiffel had to move at a faster pace. Undertake construction.

You know, the Washington Monument, which is half as tall as the Eiffel Tower, took 36 years to complete.

Waves of protest among Parisians

A 1,000-foot-tall building would lower the Parisian sky and suppress other city landmarks such as Notre Dame and the Louvre Palace (Louvre) and Arc de Triomphe (Arc de Triomphe)... When the Eiffel Tower began to break ground, more than 300 well-known Paris citizens signed a petition calling for the project to be stopped. They claimed that Eiffel's "candelabra" would damage Paris' reputation and image. However, Eiffel and the city government ignored the protest, and construction work continued unaffected.

Other fears

The Tower has other critics. A French mathematics professor predicts that the building will collapse when it reaches 748 feet; some "experts" say the tower's lights will kill all the fish in the Seine.

The Paris version of the New York Herald claimed that the tower was changing the climate, and the daily newspaper "Le Matin" used a headline to report that the tower was "sinking." However, the construction of the tower never stopped for a moment, and a feeling of awe began to replace fear.

The Eighth Wonder of the World

Generally speaking, architecture is improved based on learning from previous works. For example, if you want to build a 10-story building, it is best to study 8 and 9 first. layer building. Eiffel was not so lucky. No building had ever reached the height of the Eiffel Tower before.

In order to complete the construction of the Tower, Eiffel designed many creative technologies:

· Unlike other large-scale construction projects at the time, Eiffel manufactured all the components in his own workshop in advance. part. In other words, when these components are sent to the construction site, they can be installed very quickly.

· The rivet holes are pre-made to a tolerance of one tenth of a millimeter, allowing 20 riveting teams to assemble 1,650 rivets per day.

·Each component of building a tower weighs no more than 3 tons, which makes small cranes widely used.

Tower Piers

At the beginning of the project, there were actually four construction sites, each of which was a leg of the tower or became a tower pier. The piers did not meet until 180 feet in, and when they did, they had to be perfectly level. This perfect level would serve as the basis for the remaining 800 feet. If the tower piers are constructed slightly incorrectly, the entire tower will tilt.

Eiffel knew that he could not guarantee that the tower piers would hold up a perfect level after construction, so he installed a temporary hydraulic pump at the base of each tower pier. In this way, as the project progresses, he can make fine adjustments by slightly raising or lowering the tower piers. After the overall adjustment is completed, workers will embed iron wedges into the tower piers to permanently fix the tower piers.

Later it turned out that Eiffel had nothing to worry about. Even at a height of 180 feet, the maximum error of the four tower piers is less than 2.5 inches. The four tower piers are simply adjusted and fixed. To this day, the tower remains in perfect condition.

Epilogue

The Eiffel Tower is a miracle, not only because of its unique design, but also because the tower was built faster than expected and at a lower cost than expected. The exhibition is scheduled to start on May 6, and the tower will be completed on March 31.

Eiffel and his company made their money back in record time. During the six months of the expo, the tower earned US$1.4 million, while the original estimated cost was only US$1.6 million. Plus a government subsidy of US$300,000, the investment was fully recovered before the end of the expo.

The completed tower was so spectacular that it won the admiration of many of its original critics. Among them was Tirard, the French Prime Minister at the time. He initially opposed the project, but after the project was completed, he awarded Eiffel the Legion of Honor.

This iron tower has become a symbol of France's highest technology and a symbol of France.

Of course not everyone will change their attitude. Guy de Maupassant, the novelist famous for "The Necklace", is said to often eat on the second floor of the Tower. His reason is: here It’s the only place where you can’t see the Iron Tower. And in Maupassant's novels, many characters don't like the Tower either.

Facts about the Eiffel Tower

· Every seven years, the Eiffel Tower is painted with 300 tons of reddish green paint. The reason for the reddish green is that this color has the least impact on the blue sky and the green space of Champ de Mars below the Eiffel Tower.

·The four piers of the iron tower point exactly to the southeast and northwest.

· In 1925, the city of Paris planned to decorate the Eiffel Tower with electric lights as part of an art fair held nearby, but gave up because the cost was as high as $500,000. When the car manufacturer André Citro?n (Citro?n) learned of the plan, he was prepared to sponsor the project, but the condition was that the lights would be used to form the logo of his car company. Finally the two sides reached an agreement.

· Unfortunately, the Eiffel Tower has also become the most famous suicide spot in France. Every year, an average of four people commit suicide by jumping from the tower or hanging from the tower. The first person to jump from the tower was a tailor named Reichelt. He sewed clothes with bat wings for himself. He thought he could fly, but unfortunately.

Three Observation Towers

The French say that the Eiffel Tower is the "observation tower of the capital", and it is indeed true. It has three observation decks: upper, middle and lower, which can accommodate tens of thousands of people at the same time. Each of the three observation decks has a different view and brings different tastes. For a century, about 3 million people have climbed to the top of the tower every year to overlook the city of Paris and be amazed.

The highest observation deck is 274 meters above the ground. If you go up the 1,652 steps, it will take almost an hour. Of course, you can also use the elevator to climb. This is the best place to look from a distance, which will give people the feeling that the noisy Paris suddenly quieted down and turned into a huge map, with numerous avenues and alleys delineating countless lines of different widths. All of Paris is at your feet, and when the view is clear during the day, you can see as far as 60 kilometers away.

The middle-level observation deck is 115 meters above the ground. Some say the best views can be seen looking out from this level. Indeed, the light yellow tower of the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre in the green shade, and the white Sacre Coeur de Montmartre are all clearly visible and colorful. When you climb the tower in the evening, you will see a picturesque night, with lights like brocade and green trees reflecting the trees. The street lights intertwined like a net are really like a beaded net after rain, every particle of it crystal clear. There is also a well-decorated panoramic restaurant on this floor, which is packed with customers all year round. Seats must be reserved in advance.

The observation deck on the bottom floor is the largest and quite spacious. It has various service facilities such as conference halls, cinemas, restaurants, shops and post offices. Among the crowds passing by, it feels like you are in a busy city, forgetting that this is 57 meters in the air after all. The close-up view is ideal from here. To the north, the Palais de Charlotte and its splashing fountain, the Seine River flowing quietly at the foot of the tower, the large lawn of the Mars Campus and the ancient buildings of the French Military Academy to the south, form an unforgettable landscape.

From criticism to praise

Like all innovative buildings in Paris, the Eiffel Tower was indifferent and rejected by most Parisians from the beginning, not to mention the architecture and urban planning. Experts criticized harshly. Although Eiffel, the designer of the Eiffel Tower, declared that "France will be the only country in the world to fly its flag three hundred meters in the air," he was unable to convince anti-Eiffel Tower opponents from all walks of life.

The Times even published an appeal signed by 300 people opposing Eiffel's design plan, believing that the sword-shaped iron tower will completely destroy Paris' architectural art style, including quite a few The famous Maupassant and Dumas et al. Even after the tower was completed, the criticism did not stop.

Garnier petitioned the government to demolish it; Verlaine, the famous French poet and representative of symbolism, immediately took another route every time he passed the tower to avoid seeing its "ugly" image. For a time, the storm caused by the Eiffel Tower swept the entire city of Paris.

It was only because the tower made a significant contribution to radio communications in World War I that the opposition gradually subsided. From then on, the Eiffel Tower had a formal status in Paris. It was gradually accepted and loved, and finally became the canvas of painters. The famous landscape painter Valadon's only son Utrillo, the primitive painters Henry, Rousseau, etc. have all described it to their heart's content. The French surrealist poet Apollinaire also praised it in his poems.

An engineer who never thought of taking art as his starting point has created the greatest work of art of our time; a monumental iron tower that was not built for a broadcast transmitter, but was praised for its role as a launch pad. People agree that this is indeed a great irony.

Maintenance of the Eiffel Tower

Since its completion in 1889, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, has become a symbol of France. This 320-meter-high building is connected by 12,000 metal parts and uses more than 9,000 tons of steel. The French have a feminine and delicate character. They do not call this behemoth a "great hero" or a "big man", but rather refer to it intimately as the "Iron Lady".

The Iron Lady stands proudly and gracefully, and has been standing in the wind and rain for more than a hundred years. Since it is a "lady", it must take a bath and dress up. But this lady in Paris has only washed her vagina 18 times in 118 years. The shortest time was once every two years, and the longest time was only once in decades. This pitiful record will not only make "ladies" sad, but will also make "men" cry.

So, how does the "Iron Lady" take a bath? Due to the complex construction of the Eiffel Tower, artificial paint is still used. The paint itself is made of specialized materials and has a longer lifespan than other paints. Due to the huge structure of the tower, the number of laborers cannot be too large, usually around 25 people. The workers first polish the steel frame with sandpaper, scrape off the aged paint, and apply primer.

Then, workers applied 55 tons of mixed paint to the tower bit by bit, which is an important part of protecting the Eiffel Tower. Workers have to apply paint to various parts of the tower: the sunny side, the shady side, the windward side of the top... The most difficult part is the dead corner of the top tower, where people can only bend or tilt their bodies to work. . Although they are all equipped with safety ropes, there will not be much danger to life, but according to the words of the workers: "Painting this beautiful tower is indeed a hard job."

While painting the tower At that time, the tower was open for business as usual. A large number of tourists come to visit every day. Sometimes paint drips on tourists, and staff will help remove them. This paint is easy to remove when wet but is as solid as stone once dry.

The key to the "Iron Lady's" bathing is the paint used in the Eiffel Tower. This paint color is very unique, consisting of three different shades of brown, dark brown at the bottom and light brown at the top. It has a special name called "Eiffel Tower Tan". Usually, when people visit, they are only amazed by the tall and majestic style of the Tower, and are impressed by its ingenious creativity. On the contrary, few people pay attention to the color of the Tower. In fact, the beauty of the "Iron Lady" is not only her graceful figure, but also the combination of her own color and light, which makes the tower look more radiant and memorable.

Mr. Eiffel, the designer of the Iron Tower, said when he originally delivered the drawings: "Only proper paint can guarantee the life of this metal building." This sentence is very applicable to the maintenance of the Iron Lady. Is it also more suitable for the maintenance of people's emotions today: meticulous care, good beginning and end, this is the great beauty of the world.