Eiffel Tower
Eiffel Tower Paris
Paris : A very rich history
Eiffel Tower Paris
The plan to build a tower 300 metres high was conceived as part of
preparations for the World's Fair of 1889. With 2 million visitors the first
year and almost 6 million people a year today, the Eiffel Tower is a real
crowded monument in Paris. At the crossroads of the entire world, more than
200 million visitors have come since its construction. It's not surprising
when you consider the Eiffel Tower is the monument that best symbolizes
Europe.
The Eiffel Tower was build in 1889 by Gustave Eiffel :
Born in Dijon in 1832, he graduated from the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in 1855, the same year that Paris hosted the first world's Fair. He spent several years in the South West of France, where he supervized work on the great railway bridge in Bordeaux, and afterwards he set up in his own right in 1864 as a "constructor", that is, as a business specializing in metal structural work. His outstanding career as a constructor was marked by work on the Porto viaduct over the river Douro in 1876, the Garabit viaduct in 1884, Pest railway station in Hungary, the dome of the Nice observatory, and the ingenious structure of the Statue of Liberty. It culminated in 1889 with the Eiffel Tower.
After the end of his career in business, marred by the failure of the Panama Canal, Eiffel began an active life of scientific experimental research in the fields of meteorology, radiotelegraphy and aerodynamics. He died on December
27 1923.
With the construction work barely begun, there appeared the Artists' Protest
:
The "Protest against the Tower of Monsieur Eiffel", published in the newspaper Le Temps, is addressed to the World's Fair's director of works, Monsieur Alphand. It is signed by several big names from the world of literature and the arts: Charles Gounod, Guy de Maupassant, Alexandre Dumas junior, François Coppée, Leconte de Lisle, Sully Prudhomme, William Bouguereau, Ernest Meissonier, Victorien Sardou, Charles Garnier and others to whom posterity has been less kind. Other satirists pushed the violent diatribe even further, hurling insults like "this truly tragic street lamp" (Léon Bloy), "this belfry skeleton" (Paul Verlaine), "this mast of iron gymnasium apparatus, incomplete, confused and deformed" (François Coppée), "this high and skinny pyramid of iron ladders, this giant ungainly skeleton upon a base that looks built to carry a colossal monument of Cyclops, but which just peters out into a ridiculous thin shape like a factory chimney" (Maupassant), "a half-built factory pipe, a carcass waiting to be fleshed out with freestone or brick, a funnel-shaped grill, a hole-riddled suppository" (Joris-Karl Huysmans). Once the Tower was finished the criticism burnt itself out in the presence of the completed masterpiece, and in the light of the enormous popular success with which it was greeted.
It received two million visitors during the World's Fair of 1889.
In 1889 the tower was a colossal fairground attraction, but during the 1920s it became a symbol of modernity and the avant-garde, inspiring poets such as Guillaume Apollinaire, film-makers, photographers and numerous painters.
Its effect was a burst of almost ethereal clarity, of the kind only metal creates, piercing the architectural landscape of Paris.
Its honesty and plainness of appearance intensified the artistic debate that had been opened thirty years earlier, giving form to the division between architects and engineers, between art and science, and embodying a new type of expression through structure and space.
Its abstract qualities, without practical purpose in themselves, and the purity of its design, made it a subject for the many forms of artistic expression of the city and country which had created it.
The Eiffel Tower Night Show
The Eiffel Tower will once again sparkle each hour on the hour for ten minutes, from dusk until 2 am (1 am in winter).
This new lighting fixture is coupled with the gold-toned lighting system in place since 1986 for maximum effect.
But for the inauguration celebration, the gold lighting will shut down for ten minutes allowing the glowing diamond-sparkles to perform a new magical presentation sure to enthral the enthusiastic crowds below.
Tours including Eiffel Tower visit or sight
Eiffel tower dinner + Moulin Rouge show
Eiffel Tower dinner and cruise
Our recommended sites about The Eiffel Tower :
Eiffel Tower Pictures : Pictures of The Eiffel Tower and many other monuments
Photos de Paris by Philippe Sasso - A French photograph based in Paris
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Eiffel Tower Paris
Eiffel Tower Paris history : Visit Eiffel Tower with shuttle-paris.com