Eiffel Tower: Behind the Scenes
The Eiffel Tower, also known as "La dame de fer" or "Iron Lady" locally, was built for the 1889 World's Fair and to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. At first, some important French artists and thinkers didn't like its design, but now it's loved worldwide and is one of France's most famous symbols. In 2022, 5,889,000 people visited the tower. It's the most popular paid-entry monument globally, with 6.91 million visitors in 2015. The tower became a historical monument in 1964 and was added to UNESCO's World Heritage Site list in 1991 under "Paris, Banks of the Seine."
The Eiffel Tower was constructed by a man named Alexandre Gustave Eiffel to mark the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. While Gustave Eiffel gets the credit, the original design actually came from two other people who were less well-known: Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier. They were the main engineers at Eiffel's engineering company. Another important person involved was the main architect, Stephen Sauvestre.
They started digging the foundations for the Eiffel Tower on January 28, 1887, and finished all the construction on March 31, 1889. Originally, they planned to keep the tower for only 20 years. Many people didn't like it and wanted it gone because they thought it was ugly and ruined the view of the Paris skyline. After 20 years, ownership of the tower went back to Paris.
Before building the Eiffel Tower, a team of 50 architects, engineers, and draftsmen made 5,300 drawings. Then, they made 18,000 pieces at Eiffel's factory outside of town. These pieces were made very precisely, accurate to 1/10 of a millimeter. They were put together to make bigger pieces, each 5 meters long, which were then taken to the construction site.
To assemble the Eiffel Tower, 132 workers were there to put all the pieces together. They used special rivets that were heated up and then hammered into place. It took 4 workers to assemble each rivet: one heated it, another held it, a third shaped the head, and the fourth hammered it in.
Building the Eiffel Tower cost 7,799,401.31 French gold francs in 1889, which is about $1,495,139.89 at that time. Today, it would cost around $36,784,020.11. It took 2 years, 2 months, and 5 days to finish building it. The tower stands 300 meters (980 feet) tall, not counting the 24-meter (79 feet) antenna on top. Its base is square, measuring 125 meters (410 feet) on each side.
The second floor platform is 115.5 meters (378 feet 11 inches) high. The tower holds 45,000 liters (12,000 US gallons) of paint, and the surface to be painted is 250,000 square meters (62 acres). Since it was built, the tower has been repainted 18 times, with only 25 painters hired each time. Three different colors of paint are used to make the tower look taller, with the lightest color at the top.
The Eiffel Tower is really tall, standing at 330 meters (1,083 feet), which is like an 81-story building. It's the tallest thing in Paris. The bottom part is square and measures 125 meters (410 feet) on each side. When it was built, it was taller than any other human-made structure in the world, including the Washington Monument. It held this record for 41 years until the Chrysler Building in New York City was built in 1930. The Eiffel Tower was the first structure to be over 200 meters and then 300 meters tall. In 1957, they added a broadcasting antenna on top, making it even taller than the Chrysler Building by 5.2 meters (17 feet). If you don't count antennas, it's the second tallest free-standing structure in France after the Millau Viaduct.
The Eiffel Tower has three floors where visitors can go. There are restaurants on the first and second floors. The highest part, the upper platform on the top floor, is 276 meters (906 feet) above the ground. It's the tallest spot people can go to in the European Union to see things. You can buy tickets to go up either by stairs or by lift to the first and second floors. It's more than 300 steps from the ground to the first floor, and the same from the first to the second floor, so the whole way up is about 600 steps. There are stairs that go all the way to the top floor, but usually, people take the lift. At the very top, on the third floor, there's a private apartment that Gustave Eiffel, who built the tower, used. He decorated it with furniture from Jean Lachaise and had guests like Thomas Edison over.
The Eiffel Tower is covered in 20,000 twinkling lights and 80 kilometers (50 miles) of cables. Every year, the paper used to print visitors' tickets weighs 2 tonnes (4,400 pounds). The top of the tower tilts away from the sun because the metal facing the sun heats up and expands. It can move up to 18 centimeters (7 inches) and grow 15 centimeters (6 inches) taller. Also, the tower was designed to sway a bit in the wind.
Over time, the city discovered that the Eiffel Tower could be useful for communications. They set up a lab to study things like gravity and electricity. During battles, the military used the tower to send wireless messages. It even helped catch a spy named "Mata Hari" during World War I. Nowadays, it sends radio and TV signals to Paris and beyond. People realized how helpful the tower was, so they didn't want it torn down anymore.
The Eiffel Tower also joined the green energy movement by adding two wind turbines on the second level. These turbines can make 10,000 kilowatts per hour (13,000 horsepower per hour) of electricity.
Written by Gargi Ghosh
Gargi Ghosh (M.A, B.Ed, M.B.A, TEFL) is an Educator, an artist, and a graphic designer, as well as an author and former Principal. A winner of awards in the categories of Women's Award-An Inspiring Woman (2019), Most Socially Active Principal (2020), Top Educators of India (2020), and Top 100 Iconic Educators of India (2021), she has published her poems in several international anthologies and secured the 8th position in a Global Poetry Competition
