The Eiffel Tower ( ; french: links=yes, tour Eiffel ) is a
wrought-iron
Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a wood-like "grain" t ...
lattice tower
A lattice tower or truss tower is a freestanding vertical framework tower. This construction is widely used in transmission towers carrying high voltage electric power lines, in radio masts and towers (a self-radiating tower or as a support for a ...
on the
Champ de Mars
The Champ de Mars (; en, Field of Mars) is a large public greenspace in Paris, France, located in the seventh ''arrondissement'', between the Eiffel Tower to the northwest and the École Militaire to the southeast. The park is named after the ...
in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, France. It is named after the engineer
Gustave Eiffel
Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (born Bonickhausen dit Eiffel; ; ; 15 December 1832 – 27 December 1923) was a French civil engineer. A graduate of École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, he made his name with various bridges for the French railway ...
, whose company designed and built the tower.
Locally nicknamed "''La dame de fer''" (French for "Iron Lady"), it was constructed from 1887 to 1889 as the centerpiece of the
1889 World's Fair
The Exposition Universelle of 1889 () was a world's fair held in Paris, France, from 5 May to 31 October 1889. It was the fourth of eight expositions held in the city between 1855 and 1937. It attracted more than thirty-two million visitors. The ...
. Although initially criticised by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design, it has since become a global
cultural icon
A cultural icon is a person or an artifact that is identified by members of a culture as representative of that culture. The process of identification is subjective, and "icons" are judged by the extent to which they can be seen as an authentic ...
of France and one of the most recognisable structures in the world.
The tower received 5,889,000 visitors in 2022, up by 197 percent from 2021, when numbers dropped due to the COVID virus. The Eiffel Tower is the most visited monument with an entrance fee in the world: 6.91 million people ascended it in 2015. It was designated a ''
monument historique
''Monument historique'' () is a designation given to some national heritage sites in France. It may also refer to the state procedure in France by which National Heritage protection is extended to a building, a specific part of a building, a coll ...
'' in 1964, and was named part of a
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
World Heritage Site
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...
("Paris, Banks of the Seine") in 1991.
The tower is tall, about the same height as an 81- building, and the
tallest structure in Paris. Its base is square, measuring on each side. During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the
Washington Monument
The Washington Monument is an obelisk shaped building within the National Mall in Washington, D.C., built to commemorate George Washington, once commander-in-chief of the Continental Army (1775–1784) in the American Revolutionary War and the ...
to become the
tallest human-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years until the
Chrysler Building
The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco skyscraper on the East Side of Manhattan in New York City, at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. At , it is the tallest brick building in the world with a steel fra ...
in New York City was finished in 1930. It was the first structure in the world to surpass both the 200-metre and 300-metre mark in height. Due to the addition of a broadcasting
aerial at the top of the tower in 1957, it is now taller than the Chrysler Building by . Excluding transmitters, the Eiffel Tower is the
second tallest free-standing structure in France after the
Millau Viaduct
The Millau Viaduct (french: Viaduc de Millau, ) is a multispan cable-stayed bridge completed in 2004 across the gorge valley of the Tarn near (west of) Millau in the Aveyron department in the Occitanie Region, in Southern France. The design te ...
.
The tower has three levels for visitors, with restaurants on the first and second levels. The top level's upper platform is above the ground – the highest
observation deck
An observation deck, observation platform, or viewing platform is an elevated sightseeing platform usually situated upon a tall architectural structure, such as a skyscraper or observation tower. Observation decks are sometimes enclosed ...
accessible to the public in the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
. Tickets can be purchased to ascend by stairs or
lift
Lift or LIFT may refer to:
Physical devices
* Elevator, or lift, a device used for raising and lowering people or goods
** Paternoster lift, a type of lift using a continuous chain of cars which do not stop
** Patient lift, or Hoyer lift, mobile ...
to the first and second levels. The climb from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the climb from the first level to the second, making the entire ascent a 600 step climb. Although there is a staircase to the top level, it is usually accessible only by lift. On this top, third level is a private apartment built for Gustave Eiffel's private use. He decorated it with furniture by Jean Lachaise and invited friends such as
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventio ...
.
History
Origin
The design of the Eiffel Tower is attributed to
Maurice Koechlin
Maurice Koechlin (8 March 1856 – 14 January 1946) was a Franco- Swiss structural engineer from the Koechlin family.
Life
A member of the renowned Alsatian Koechlin family, he was born in Buhl, Haut-Rhin, the son of Jean Koechlin and hi ...
and
Émile Nouguier
Émile Nouguier (17 February 1840 – 23 November 1897) was a French civil engineer and architect. He is famous for co-designing the Eiffel Tower, built 1887–1889 for the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris, France, the Garabit viaduct, th ...
, two senior engineers working for the
Compagnie des Établissements Eiffel. It was envisioned after discussion about a suitable centerpiece for the proposed
1889 Exposition Universelle, a
world's fair
A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...
to celebrate the centennial of the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
. Eiffel openly acknowledged that inspiration for a tower came from the
Latting Observatory
The Latting Observatory was a wooden tower in New York City built as part of the 1853 Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, adjoining the New York Crystal Palace. It was located on the North side of 42nd Street between Fifth Avenue and Sixt ...
built in New York City in 1853. In May 1884, working at home, Koechlin made a sketch of their idea, described by him as "a great pylon, consisting of four lattice girders standing apart at the base and coming together at the top, joined together by metal
truss
A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure.
In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so that the assembl ...
es at regular intervals". Eiffel initially showed little enthusiasm, but he did approve further study, and the two engineers then asked
Stephen Sauvestre
Charles Léon Stephen Sauvestre (26 December 1847 – 18 June 1919) was a French architect. He is notable for being one of the architects contributing to the design of the world-famous Eiffel Tower, built for the 1889 Universal Exposition in Pa ...
, the head of the company's architectural department, to contribute to the design. Sauvestre added decorative arches to the base of the tower, a glass pavilion to the first level, and other embellishments.
The new version gained Eiffel's support: he bought the rights to the patent on the design which Koechlin, Nougier, and Sauvestre had taken out, and the design was put on display at the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in the autumn of 1884 under the company name. On 30 March 1885, Eiffel presented his plans to the ; after discussing the technical problems and emphasising the practical uses of the tower, he finished his talk by saying the tower would symbolise
Little progress was made until 1886, when
Jules Grévy
François Judith Paul Grévy (15 August 1807 – 9 September 1891), known as Jules Grévy (), was a French people, French lawyer and politician who served as President of France from 1879 to 1887. He was a leader of the Opportunist Republicans, ...
was re-elected as president of France and
Édouard Lockroy
Édouard Lockroy (18 July 183822 November 1913) was a French politician.
He was born in Paris, the son of Joseph Philippe Simon (1803–1891), an actor and dramatist who took the name of Lockroy.
Revolutionary years
He had begun by studying art ...
was appointed as minister for trade. A budget for the exposition was passed and, on 1 May, Lockroy announced an alteration to the terms of the open competition being held for a centrepiece to the exposition, which effectively made the selection of Eiffel's design a foregone conclusion, as entries had to include a study for a four-sided metal tower on the Champ de Mars.
[ (A 300-metre tower was then considered a herculean engineering effort). On 12 May, a commission was set up to examine Eiffel's scheme and its rivals, which, a month later, decided that all the proposals except Eiffel's were either impractical or lacking in details.
After some debate about the exact location of the tower, a contract was signed on 8 January 1887. Eiffel signed it acting in his own capacity rather than as the representative of his company, the contract granting him 1.5 million francs toward the construction costs: less than a quarter of the estimated 6.5 million francs. Eiffel was to receive all income from the commercial exploitation of the tower during the exhibition and for the next 20 years. He later established a separate company to manage the tower, putting up half the necessary capital himself.
A French bank, the '']Crédit Industriel et Commercial
The Crédit Industriel et Commercial (CIC, "Industrial and Commercial Credit Company") is a bank and financial services group in France, founded in 1859. It has been majority owned by Crédit Mutuel, one of the country's top five banking groups, s ...
'' (CIC), helped finance the construction of the Eiffel Tower. During the period of the tower's construction, the CIC was acquiring funds from predatory loans to the National Bank of Haiti
The National Bank of Haiti (french: Banque Nationale d'Haïti) was a French bank founded in 1881 by Crédit Industriel et Commercial and headquartered in Paris to serve the Haiti indemnity obligation. It had a monopoly of currency issuance in Hai ...
, some of which went towards the financing of the tower. These loans were connected to an indemnity controversy which saw France force Haiti's government to financially compensate French slaveowners for lost income as a result of the Haitian Revolution
The Haitian Revolution (french: révolution haïtienne ; ht, revolisyon ayisyen) was a successful insurrection by slave revolt, self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti. The revolt ...
, and required Haiti to pay the CIC and its partner nearly half of all taxes collected on exports, "effectively choking off the nation’s primary source of income". According to ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', " ta time when the ICwas helping finance one of the world’s best-known landmarks, the Eiffel Tower, as a monument to French liberty, it was choking Haiti’s economy, taking much of the young nation’s income back to Paris and impairing its ability to start schools, hospitals and the other building blocks of an independent country."
Artists' protest
The proposed tower had been a subject of controversy, drawing criticism from those who did not believe it was feasible and those who objected on artistic grounds. Prior to the Eiffel Tower's construction, no structure had ever been constructed to a height of 300 m, or even 200 m for that matter, and many people believed it was impossible. These objections were an expression of a long-standing debate in France about the relationship between architecture and engineering. It came to a head as work began at the Champ de Mars: a "Committee of Three Hundred" (one member for each metre of the tower's height) was formed, led by the prominent architect Charles Garnier and including some of the most important figures of the arts, such as William-Adolphe Bouguereau
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (; 30 November 1825 – 19 August 1905) was a French academic painter. In his realistic genre paintings, he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female ...
, Guy de Maupassant
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (, ; ; 5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a 19th-century French author, remembered as a master of the short story form, as well as a representative of the Naturalist school, who depicted human lives, destin ...
, Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (18 ...
and Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (; 12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are '' Manon'' (1884) and ''Werther' ...
. A petition called "Artists against the Eiffel Tower" was sent to the Minister of Works and Commissioner for the Exposition, Adolphe Alphand
Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand (; 26 October 1817 – 6 December 1891) was a French engineer of the Corps of Bridges and Roads. As a close associate of Baron Haussmann and later as Director of Public Works at Paris City Hall from 1871, he was inst ...
, and it was published by ''Le Temps
''Le Temps'' (literally "The Time") is a Swiss French-language daily newspaper published in Berliner format in Geneva by Le Temps SA. It is the sole nationwide French-language non-specialised daily newspaper of Switzerland. Since 2021, it has b ...
'' on 14 February 1887:
Gustave Eiffel responded to these criticisms by comparing his tower to the Egyptian pyramids
The Egyptian pyramids are ancient masonry structures located in Egypt. Sources cite at least 118 identified "Egyptian" pyramids. Approximately 80 pyramids were built within the Kingdom of Kush, now located in the modern country of Sudan. Of ...
: "My tower will be the tallest edifice ever erected by man. Will it not also be grandiose in its way? And why would something admirable in Egypt become hideous and ridiculous in Paris?" These criticisms were also dealt with by Édouard Lockroy in a letter of support written to Alphand, sardonically saying, "Judging by the stately swell of the rhythms, the beauty of the metaphors, the elegance of its delicate and precise style, one can tell this protest is the result of collaboration of the most famous writers and poets of our time", and he explained that the protest was irrelevant since the project had been decided upon months before, and construction on the tower was already under way.
Indeed, Garnier was a member of the Tower Commission that had examined the various proposals, and had raised no objection. Eiffel was similarly unworried, pointing out to a journalist that it was premature to judge the effect of the tower solely on the basis of the drawings, that the Champ de Mars was distant enough from the monuments mentioned in the protest for there to be little risk of the tower overwhelming them, and putting the aesthetic argument for the tower: "Do not the laws of natural forces always conform to the secret laws of harmony?"
Some of the protesters changed their minds when the tower was built; others remained unconvinced. Guy de Maupassant
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (, ; ; 5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a 19th-century French author, remembered as a master of the short story form, as well as a representative of the Naturalist school, who depicted human lives, destin ...
supposedly ate lunch in the tower's restaurant every day because it was the one place in Paris where the tower was not visible.
By 1918, it had become a symbol of Paris and of France after Guillaume Apollinaire wrote a nationalist poem in the shape of the tower (a calligram
A calligram is text arranged in such a way that it forms a thematically related image. It can be a poem, a phrase, a portion of scripture, or a single word; the visual arrangement can rely on certain use of the typeface, calligraphy or handwrit ...
) to express his feelings about the war against Germany. Today, it is widely considered to be a remarkable piece of structural art, and is often featured in films and literature.
Construction
Work on the foundations started on 28 January 1887. Those for the east and south legs were straightforward, with each leg resting on four concrete slabs, one for each of the principal girders of each leg. The west and north legs, being closer to the river Seine
)
, mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur
, mouth_coordinates =
, mouth_elevation =
, progression =
, river_system = Seine basin
, basin_size =
, tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle
, tributarie ...
, were more complicated: each slab needed two piles
Hemorrhoids (or haemorrhoids), also known as piles, are vascular structures in the anal canal. In their normal state, they are cushions that help with stool control. They become a disease when swollen or inflamed; the unqualified term ''hemo ...
installed by using compressed-air caissons long and in diameter driven to a depth of to support the concrete slabs, which were thick. Each of these slabs supported a block of limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
with an inclined top to bear a supporting shoe for the ironwork.
Each shoe was anchored to the stonework by a pair of bolts in diameter and long. The foundations were completed on 30 June, and the erection of the ironwork began. The visible work on-site was complemented by the enormous amount of exacting preparatory work that took place behind the scenes: the drawing office produced 1,700 general drawings and 3,629 detailed drawings of the 18,038 different parts needed. The task of drawing the components was complicated by the complex angles involved in the design and the degree of precision required: the position of rivet holes was specified to within and angles worked out to one second of arc
A minute of arc, arcminute (arcmin), arc minute, or minute arc, denoted by the symbol , is a unit of angular measurement equal to of one degree. Since one degree is of a turn (or complete rotation), one minute of arc is of a turn. The na ...
. The finished components, some already riveted together into sub-assemblies, arrived on horse-drawn carts from a factory in the nearby Parisian suburb of Levallois-Perret
Levallois-Perret () is a commune in the Hauts-de-Seine department and Île-de-France region of north-central France. It lies some from the centre of Paris in the north-western suburbs of the French capital. It is the most densely populated ...
and were first bolted together, with the bolts being replaced with rivets as construction progressed. No drilling or shaping was done on site: if any part did not fit, it was sent back to the factory for alteration. In all, 18,038 pieces were joined using 2.5 million rivets.[
At first, the legs were constructed as ]cantilever
A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a canti ...
s, but about halfway to the first level construction was paused to create a substantial timber scaffold
Scaffolding, also called scaffold or staging, is a temporary structure used to support a work crew and materials to aid in the construction, maintenance and repair of buildings, bridges and all other man-made structures. Scaffolds are widely use ...
. This renewed concerns about the structural integrity of the tower, and sensational headlines such as "Eiffel Suicide!" and "Gustave Eiffel Has Gone Mad: He Has Been Confined in an Asylum" appeared in the tabloid press. At this stage, a small "creeper" crane designed to move up the tower was installed in each leg. They made use of the guides for the lifts which were to be fitted in the four legs. The critical stage of joining the legs at the first level was completed by the end of March 1888.[ Although the metalwork had been prepared with the utmost attention to detail, provision had been made to carry out small adjustments to precisely align the legs; ]hydraulic
Hydraulics (from Greek: Υδραυλική) is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counter ...
jacks were fitted to the shoes at the base of each leg, capable of exerting a force of 800 tonnes, and the legs were intentionally constructed at a slightly steeper angle than necessary, being supported by sandboxes on the scaffold. Although construction involved 300 on-site employees,[ due to Eiffel's safety precautions and the use of movable gangways, guardrails and screens, only one person died.
File:Construction tour eiffel.JPG, 18 July 1887:]
The start of the erection of the metalwork
File:Construction tour eiffel2.JPG, 7 December 1887:
Construction of the legs with scaffolding
File:Construction tour eiffel3.JPG, 20 March 1888:
Completion of the first level
File:Construction tour eiffel4.JPG, 15 May 1888:
Start of construction on the second stage
File:Construction tour eiffel5.JPG,
Completion of the second level
File:Construction tour eiffel6.JPG, 26 December 1888:
Construction of the upper stage
File:Construction tour eiffel7.JPG,
Construction of the cupola
In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome.
The word derives, via Italian, from ...
Lifts
Equipping the tower with adequate and safe passenger lifts was a major concern of the government commission overseeing the Exposition. Although some visitors could be expected to climb to the first level, or even the second, lifts clearly had to be the main means of ascent.[Vogel, pp. 20–21.]
Constructing lifts to reach the first level was relatively straightforward: the legs were wide enough at the bottom and so nearly straight that they could contain a straight track, and a contract was given to the French company Roux, Combaluzier & Lepape for two lifts to be fitted in the east and west legs.[Vogel, p. 28.] Roux, Combaluzier & Lepape used a pair of endless chains with rigid, articulated links to which the car was attached. Lead weights on some links of the upper or return sections of the chains counterbalanced most of the car's weight. The car was pushed up from below, not pulled up from above: to prevent the chain buckling, it was enclosed in a conduit. At the bottom of the run, the chains passed around diameter sprocket
A sprocket, sprocket-wheel or chainwheel is a profiled wheel with teeth that mesh with a chain, track or other perforated or indented material. The name 'sprocket' applies generally to any wheel upon which radial projections engage a chain passi ...
s. Smaller sprockets at the top guided the chains.[
Installing lifts to the second level was more of a challenge because a straight track was impossible. No French company wanted to undertake the work. The European branch of Otis Brothers & Company submitted a proposal but this was rejected: the fair's charter ruled out the use of any foreign material in the construction of the tower. The deadline for bids was extended but still no French companies put themselves forward, and eventually the contract was given to Otis in July 1887.][Vogel, pp. 23–24.] Otis were confident they would eventually be given the contract and had already started creating designs.
The car was divided into two superimposed compartments, each holding 25 passengers, with the lift operator occupying an exterior platform on the first level. Motive power
''Motive Power'' is a bi-monthly railway related magazine that focuses on diesel locomotives in Australia. The first issue was published on 23 August 1998. Its headquarters is in Sydney. The content includes photographs of locomotives & trains, ...
was provided by an inclined hydraulic ram long and in diameter in the tower leg with a stroke of : this moved a carriage carrying six sheaves. Five fixed sheaves were mounted higher up the leg, producing an arrangement similar to a block and tackle
A block and tackle or only tackle is a system of two or more pulleys with a rope or cable threaded between them, usually used to lift heavy loads.
The pulleys are assembled to form blocks and then blocks are paired so that one is fixed and one ...
but acting in reverse, multiplying the stroke of the piston rather than the force generated. The hydraulic pressure in the driving cylinder was produced by a large open reservoir on the second level. After being exhausted from the cylinder, the water was pumped back up to the reservoir by two pumps in the machinery room at the base of the south leg. This reservoir also provided power to the lifts to the first level.
The original lifts for the journey between the second and third levels were supplied by Léon Edoux. A pair of hydraulic rams were mounted on the second level, reaching nearly halfway up to the third level. One lift car was mounted on top of these rams: cables ran from the top of this car up to sheaves on the third level and back down to a second car. Each car travelled only half the distance between the second and third levels and passengers were required to change lifts halfway by means of a short gangway. The 10-ton cars each held 65 passengers.
Inauguration and the 1889 exposition
The main structural work was completed at the end of March 1889 and, on 31 March, Eiffel celebrated by leading a group of government officials, accompanied by representatives of the press, to the top of the tower. Because the lifts were not yet in operation, the ascent was made by foot, and took over an hour, with Eiffel stopping frequently to explain various features. Most of the party chose to stop at the lower levels, but a few, including the structural engineer, Émile Nouguier, the head of construction, Jean Compagnon, the President of the City Council, and reporters from ''Le Figaro
''Le Figaro'' () is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. It is headquartered on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. The oldest national newspaper in France, ''Le Figaro'' is one of three French newspapers of reco ...
'' and ''Le Monde Illustré
''Le Monde illustré'' (title translation: ''The Illustrated World'') was a leading illustrated news magazine in France which was published from 1857–1940 and again from 1945 to 1956. It was in many ways similar to its contemporary English ...
'', completed the ascent. At 2:35 pm, Eiffel hoisted a large Tricolour
A tricolour () or tricolor () is a type of flag or banner design with a triband design which originated in the 16th century as a symbol of republicanism, liberty, or revolution. The flags of France, Italy, Romania, Mexico, and Ireland were ...
to the accompaniment of a 25-gun salute fired at the first level.
There was still work to be done, particularly on the lifts and facilities, and the tower was not opened to the public until nine days after the opening of the exposition on 6 May; even then, the lifts had not been completed. The tower was an instant success with the public, and nearly 30,000 visitors made the 1,710-step climb to the top before the lifts entered service on 26 May.
Tickets cost 2 francs for the first level, 3 for the second, and 5 for the top, with half-price admission on Sundays, and by the end of the exhibition there had been 1,896,987 visitors.[
After dark, the tower was lit by hundreds of gas lamps, and a beacon sent out three beams of red, white and blue light. Two searchlights mounted on a circular rail were used to illuminate various buildings of the exposition. The daily opening and closing of the exposition were announced by a cannon at the top.
On the second level, the French newspaper ''Le Figaro'' had an office and a printing press, where a special souvenir edition, ''Le Figaro de la Tour'', was made. There was also a ]pâtisserie
A () is a type of Italian, French or Belgian bakery that specializes in pastries and sweets, as well as a term for such food items. In some countries, it is a legally controlled title that may only be used by bakeries that employ a licensed ...
.
At the top, there was a post office where visitors could send letters and postcards as a memento of their visit. Graffiti
Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...
sts were also catered for: sheets of paper were mounted on the walls each day for visitors to record their impressions of the tower. Gustave Eiffel described some of the responses as ''vraiment curieuse'' ("truly curious").
Famous visitors to the tower included the Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...
, Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt (; born Henriette-Rosine Bernard; 22 or 23 October 1844 – 26 March 1923) was a French stage actress who starred in some of the most popular French plays of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including '' La Dame Aux Camel ...
, "Buffalo Bill" Cody (his Wild West show was an attraction at the exposition) and Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventio ...
.[ Eiffel invited Edison to his private apartment at the top of the tower, where Edison presented him with one of his ]phonograph
A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...
s, a new invention and one of the many highlights of the exposition. Edison signed the guestbook
A guestbook (also guest book, visitor log, visitors' book, visitors' album) is a paper or electronic means for a visitor to acknowledge a visit to a site, physical or web-based, and leave details such as their name, postal or electronic addres ...
with this message:
Eiffel had a permit for the tower to stand for 20 years. It was to be dismantled in 1909, when its ownership would revert to the City of Paris. The city had planned to tear it down (part of the original contest rules for designing a tower was that it should be easy to dismantle) but as the tower proved to be valuable for radio telegraphy, it was allowed to remain after the expiry of the permit, and from 1910 it also became part of the International Time Service.
Eiffel made use of his apartment at the top of the tower to carry out meteorological observations, and also used the tower to perform experiments on the action of air resistance on falling bodies.
Subsequent events
For the 1900 ''Exposition Universelle'', the lifts in the east and west legs were replaced by lifts running as far as the second level constructed by the French firm Fives-Lille. These had a compensating mechanism to keep the floor level as the angle of ascent changed at the first level, and were driven by a similar hydraulic mechanism as the Otis lifts, although this was situated at the base of the tower. Hydraulic pressure was provided by pressurised accumulators located near this mechanism. At the same time the lift in the north pillar was removed and replaced by a staircase to the first level. The layout of both first and second levels was modified, with the space available for visitors on the second level. The original lift in the south pillar was removed 13 years later.
On 19 October 1901, Alberto Santos-Dumont
Alberto Santos-Dumont (Santos Dumont, Minas Gerais, Palmira, 20 July 1873 — Guarujá, 23 July 1932) was a Brazilian aeronaut, sportsman, inventor, and one of the few people to have contributed significantly to the early development of both l ...
, flying his No.6 airship
An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air.
In early ...
, won a 100,000-franc prize offered by Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe
Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe (; 25 September 1846 – 24 November 1919), born Salomon Henry Deutsch, was a successful French petroleum businessman (known as the "Oil King of Europe"Howard, Fred, ''Wilbur & Orville: A Biography'', Dover Publicati ...
for the first person to make a flight from St. Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and back in less than half an hour.
Many innovations took place at the Eiffel Tower in the early 20th century. In 1910, Father
A father is the male parent of a child. Besides the paternal bonds of a father to his children, the father may have a parental, legal, and social relationship with the child that carries with it certain rights and obligations. An adoptive fathe ...
Theodor Wulf
Theodor Wulf (28 July 1868 – 19 June 1946) was a Germans, German physicist and Jesuit priest who was one of the first experimenters to detect excess Earth atmosphere, atmospheric radiation.
Theodor Wulf became a Jesuit priest at the age of ...
measured radiant energy
Radiant may refer to:
Computers, software, and video games
* Radiant (software), a content management system
* GtkRadiant, a level editor created by id Software for their games
* Radiant AI, a technology developed by Bethesda Softworks for ''The ...
at the top and bottom of the tower. He found more at the top than expected, incidentally discovering what are known today as cosmic ray
Cosmic rays are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the Solar System in our own ...
s.[Theodor Wulf. ''Physikalische Zeitschrift''. Contains results of the four-day-long observation done by Theodor Wulf at the top of the Eiffel Tower in 1910.] Two years later, on 4 February 1912, Austrian tailor Franz Reichelt
Franz Reichelt (16 October 1878 – 4 February 1912), also known as Frantz Reichelt or François Reichelt, was an Austrian-born French tailor, inventor and parachuting pioneer, now sometimes referred to as the Flying Tailor, who is remembered fo ...
died after jumping from the first level of the tower (a height of 57 m) to demonstrate his parachute
A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag or, in a ram-air parachute, aerodynamic lift. A major application is to support people, for recreation or as a safety device for aviators, who ...
design. In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, a radio transmitter located in the tower jammed German radio communications, seriously hindering their advance on Paris and contributing to the Allied victory at the First Battle of the Marne
The First Battle of the Marne was a battle of the First World War fought from 5 to 12 September 1914. It was fought in a collection of skirmishes around the Marne River Valley. It resulted in an Entente victory against the German armies in the ...
. From 1925 to 1934, illuminated signs for Citroën
Citroën () is a French automobile brand. The "Automobiles Citroën" manufacturing company was founded in March 1919 by André Citroën. Citroën is owned by Stellantis since 2021 and previously was part of the PSA Group after Peugeot acquired ...
adorned three of the tower's sides, making it the tallest advertising space in the world at the time. In April 1935, the tower was used to make experimental low-resolution television transmissions, using a shortwave
Shortwave radio is radio transmission using shortwave (SW) radio frequencies. There is no official definition of the band, but the range always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (100 to 10 me ...
transmitter of 200 watts power. On 17 November, an improved 180-line transmitter was installed.
On two separate but related occasions in 1925, the con artist Victor Lustig
Victor Lustig (; January 4, 1890 – March 11, 1947) was a highly skilled con artist from Austria-Hungary, who undertook a criminal career that involved conducting scams across Europe and the United States during the early 20th century. Lusti ...
"sold" the tower for scrap metal. A year later, in February 1926, pilot Leon Collet was killed trying to fly under the tower. His aircraft became entangled in an aerial belonging to a wireless station. A bust
Bust commonly refers to:
* A woman's breasts
* Bust (sculpture), of head and shoulders
* An arrest
Bust may also refer to:
Places
*Bust, Bas-Rhin, a city in France
*Lashkargah, Afghanistan, known as Bust historically
Media
* ''Bust'' (magazine ...
of Gustave Eiffel by Antoine Bourdelle
Antoine Bourdelle (30 October 1861 – 1 October 1929), born Émile Antoine Bordelles, was an influential and prolific French sculptor and teacher. He was a student of Auguste Rodin, a teacher of Giacometti and Henri Matisse, and an important fi ...
was unveiled at the base of the north leg on 2 May 1929. In 1930, the tower lost the title of the world's tallest structure
The world's tallest human-made structure is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai (of the United Arab Emirates). The building gained the official title of "tallest building in the world" and the tallest self-supported structure at its opening on January ...
when the Chrysler Building
The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco skyscraper on the East Side of Manhattan in New York City, at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. At , it is the tallest brick building in the world with a steel fra ...
in New York City was completed. In 1938, the decorative arcade around the first level was removed.
Upon the German occupation
German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 an ...
of Paris in 1940, the lift cables were cut
Cut may refer to:
Common uses
* The act of cutting, the separation of an object into two through acutely-directed force
** A type of wound
** Cut (archaeology), a hole dug in the past
** Cut (clothing), the style or shape of a garment
** Cut (e ...
by the French. The tower was closed to the public during the occupation and the lifts were not repaired until 1946.[Harriss, pp. 180–84.] In 1940, German soldiers had to climb the tower to hoist a swastika-centered Reichskriegsflagge
The term Reichskriegsflagge (, ) refers to several war flags and war ensigns used by the German armed forces in history. A total of eight different designs were used in 1848–1849 and between 1867–1871 and 1945.
Today the term refers usually ...
, but the flag was so large it blew away just a few hours later, and was replaced by a smaller one. When visiting Paris, Hitler chose to stay on the ground. When the Allies
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
were nearing Paris in August 1944, Hitler ordered General Dietrich von Choltitz
Dietrich Hugo Hermann von Choltitz (; 9 November 1894 – 5 November 1966) was a German general. Sometimes referred to as the Saviour of Paris, he served in the Wehrmacht (armed forces) of Nazi Germany during World War II, as well as serving in ...
, the military governor of Paris, to demolish the tower along with the rest of the city. Von Choltitz disobeyed the order. On 25 August, before the Germans had been driven out of Paris, the German flag was replaced with a Tricolour by two men from the French Naval Museum, who narrowly beat three men led by Lucien Sarniguet, who had lowered the Tricolour on 13 June 1940 when Paris fell to the Germans.
A fire started in the television transmitter on 3 January 1956, damaging the top of the tower. Repairs took a year, and in 1957, the present radio aerial was added to the top. In 1964, the Eiffel Tower was officially declared to be a historical monument by the Minister of Cultural Affairs, André Malraux
Georges André Malraux ( , ; 3 November 1901 – 23 November 1976) was a French novelist, art theorist, and minister of cultural affairs. Malraux's novel ''La Condition Humaine'' (Man's Fate) (1933) won the Prix Goncourt. He was appointed by P ...
. A year later, an additional lift system was installed in the north pillar.
According to interviews, in 1967, Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
Mayor Jean Drapeau
Jean Drapeau, (18 February 1916 – 12 August 1999) was Mayor of Montreal from 1954 to 1957 and 1960 to 1986.
Major accomplishments of the Drapeau Administration include the development of the Montreal Metro entirely underground mass transi ...
negotiated a secret agreement with Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government ...
for the tower to be dismantled and temporarily relocated to Montreal to serve as a landmark and tourist attraction during Expo 67
The 1967 International and Universal Exposition, commonly known as Expo 67, was a general exhibition from April 27 to October 29, 1967. It was a category One World's Fair held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is considered to be one of the most su ...
. The plan was allegedly vetoed by the company operating the tower out of fear that the French government could refuse permission for the tower to be restored in its original location.
In 1982, the original lifts between the second and third levels were replaced after 97 years in service. These had been closed to the public between November and March because the water in the hydraulic drive tended to freeze. The new cars operate in pairs, with one counterbalancing the other, and perform the journey in one stage, reducing the journey time from eight minutes to less than two minutes. At the same time, two new emergency staircases were installed, replacing the original spiral staircases. In 1983, the south pillar was fitted with an electrically driven Otis lift to serve the Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...
restaurant. The Fives-Lille lifts in the east and west legs, fitted in 1899, were extensively refurbished in 1986. The cars were replaced, and a computer system was installed to completely automate the lifts. The motive power
''Motive Power'' is a bi-monthly railway related magazine that focuses on diesel locomotives in Australia. The first issue was published on 23 August 1998. Its headquarters is in Sydney. The content includes photographs of locomotives & trains, ...
was moved from the water hydraulic system to a new electrically driven oil-filled hydraulic system, and the original water hydraulics were retained solely as a counterbalance system. A service lift was added to the south pillar for moving small loads and maintenance personnel three years later.
Robert Moriarty
Robert J. Moriarty (born September 9, 1946) is an American Marine F-4B fighter pilot who holds the record as the youngest naval aviator (at age 20) in the Vietnam war, achieving the rank of captain in the Marines at age 22. Before leaving milit ...
flew a Beechcraft Bonanza
The Beechcraft Bonanza is an American general aviation aircraft introduced in 1947 by Beech Aircraft Corporation of Wichita, Kansas. The six-seater, single-engined aircraft is still being produced by Beechcraft and has been in continuous prod ...
under the tower on 31 March 1984. In 1987, A.J. Hackett
Allan John "A. J." Hackett (born May 1958) is a New Zealand entrepreneur who popularised the extreme sport of bungy jumping. He made a bungy jump from the Eiffel Tower in 1987 and founded the first commercial bungy site in 1988. He is also the ...
made one of his first bungee jumps from the top of the Eiffel Tower, using a special cord he had helped develop. Hackett was arrested by the police. On 27 October 1991, Thierry Devaux
Thierry Devaux (also known as Terry Do; born 16 November 1959), developed acrobatic bungee jumping. His landing on the Statue of Liberty was the feat that gave him mainstream awareness. He designed several techniques to transform bungee jumps ...
, along with mountain guide Hervé Calvayrac, performed a series of acrobatic figures while bungee jumping from the second floor of the tower. Facing the Champ de Mars, Devaux used an electric winch between figures to go back up to the second floor. When firemen arrived, he stopped after the sixth jump.
For its "Countdown to the Year 2000" celebration on 31 December 1999, flashing lights and high-powered searchlight
A searchlight (or spotlight) is an apparatus that combines an extremely bright source (traditionally a carbon arc lamp) with a mirrored parabolic reflector to project a powerful beam of light of approximately parallel rays in a particular direc ...
s were installed on the tower. During the last three minutes of the year, the lights were turned on starting from the base of the tower and continuing to the top to welcome 2000 with a huge fireworks show. An exhibition above a cafeteria on the first floor commemorates this event. The searchlights on top of the tower made it a beacon in Paris's night sky, and 20,000 flashing bulbs gave the tower a sparkly appearance for five minutes every hour on the hour.
The lights sparkled blue for several nights to herald the new millennium on 31 December 2000. The sparkly lighting continued for 18 months until July 2001. The sparkling lights were turned on again on 21 June 2003, and the display was planned to last for 10 years before they needed replacing.
The tower received its th guest on 28 November 2002. The tower has operated at its maximum capacity of about 7 million visitors per year since 2003. In 2004, the Eiffel Tower began hosting a seasonal ice rink on the first level. A glass floor
Glass floors are made with transparent glass when it is useful to view something from above or below; whereas translucent glass is used when there is no need to view through. In either case, toughened glass is usually chosen, for its durability ...
was installed on the first level during the 2014 refurbishment.
Design
Material
The puddle iron (wrought iron) of the Eiffel Tower weighs 7,300 tonne
The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United State ...
s, and the addition of lifts, shops and antennae have brought the total weight to approximately 10,100 tonnes. As a demonstration of the economy of design, if the 7,300 tonnes of metal in the structure were melted down, it would fill the square base, on each side, to a depth of only assuming the density of the metal to be 7.8 tonnes per cubic metre. Additionally, a cubic box surrounding the tower (324 m × 125 m × 125 m) would contain tonnes of air, weighing almost as much as the iron itself. Depending on the ambient temperature, the top of the tower may shift away from the sun by up to due to thermal expansion
Thermal expansion is the tendency of matter to change its shape, area, volume, and density in response to a change in temperature, usually not including phase transitions.
Temperature is a monotonic function of the average molecular kinetic ...
of the metal on the side facing the sun.
Wind considerations
When it was built, many were shocked by the tower's daring form. Eiffel was accused of trying to create something artistic with no regard to the principles of engineering. However, Eiffel and his team – experienced bridge builders – understood the importance of wind forces, and knew that if they were going to build the tallest structure in the world, they had to be sure it could withstand them. In an interview with the newspaper ''Le Temps
''Le Temps'' (literally "The Time") is a Swiss French-language daily newspaper published in Berliner format in Geneva by Le Temps SA. It is the sole nationwide French-language non-specialised daily newspaper of Switzerland. Since 2021, it has b ...
'' published on 14 February 1887, Eiffel said:
He used graphical methods to determine the strength of the tower and empirical evidence to account for the effects of wind, rather than a mathematical formula. Close examination of the tower reveals a basically exponential
Exponential may refer to any of several mathematical topics related to exponentiation, including:
*Exponential function, also:
**Matrix exponential, the matrix analogue to the above
* Exponential decay, decrease at a rate proportional to value
*Exp ...
shape. All parts of the tower were overdesigned to ensure maximum resistance to wind forces. The top half was even assumed to have no gaps in the latticework. In the years since it was completed, engineers have put forward various mathematical hypotheses in an attempt to explain the success of the design. The most recent, devised in 2004 after letters sent by Eiffel to the French Society of Civil Engineers in 1885 were translated into English, is described as a non-linear integral equation based on counteracting the wind pressure on any point of the tower with the tension between the construction elements at that point.
The Eiffel Tower sways by up to in the wind.
Accommodation
When originally built, the first level contained three restaurants – one French, one Russian and one Flemish
Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...
— and an "Anglo-American Bar". After the exposition closed, the Flemish restaurant was converted to a 250-seat theatre. A promenade wide ran around the outside of the first level. At the top, there were laboratories for various experiments, and a small apartment reserved for Gustave Eiffel to entertain guests, which is now open to the public, complete with period decorations and lifelike mannequin
A mannequin (also called a dummy, lay figure, or dress form) is a doll, often articulated, used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, window dressers and others, especially to display or fit clothing and show off different fabrics and textiles. Pr ...
s of Eiffel and some of his notable guests.
In May 2016, an apartment was created on the first level to accommodate four competition winners during the UEFA Euro 2016
The 2016 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2016 (stylised as UEFA EURO 2016) or simply Euro 2016, was the 15th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men's football championship of Europe o ...
football tournament in Paris in June. The apartment has a kitchen, two bedrooms, a lounge, and views of Paris landmarks including the Seine
)
, mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur
, mouth_coordinates =
, mouth_elevation =
, progression =
, river_system = Seine basin
, basin_size =
, tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle
, tributarie ...
, Sacré-Cœur, and the Arc de Triomphe
The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile (, , ; ) is one of the most famous monuments in Paris, France, standing at the western end of the Champs-Élysées at the centre of Place Charles de Gaulle, formerly named Place de l'Étoile—the ''étoile'' ...
.
Passenger lifts
The arrangement of the lifts has been changed several times during the tower's history. Given the elasticity of the cables and the time taken to align the cars with the landings, each lift, in normal service, takes an average of 8 minutes and 50 seconds to do the round trip, spending an average of 1 minute and 15 seconds at each level. The average journey time between levels is 1 minute. The original hydraulic mechanism is on public display in a small museum at the base of the east and west legs. Because the mechanism requires frequent lubrication and maintenance, public access is often restricted. The rope mechanism of the north tower can be seen as visitors exit the lift.
Engraved names
Gustave Eiffel engraved on the tower the names of 72 French scientists, engineers and mathematicians in recognition of their contributions to the building of the tower. Eiffel chose this "invocation of science" because of his concern over the artists' protest. At the beginning of the 20th century, the engravings were painted over, but they were restored in 1986–87 by the , a company operating the tower.
Aesthetics
The tower is painted in three shades: lighter at the top, getting progressively darker towards the bottom to complement the Parisian sky. It was originally reddish brown; this changed in 1968 to a bronze colour known as "Eiffel Tower Brown". In what is expected to be a temporary change, the tower is being painted gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
in commemoration of the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics
The 2024 Summer Olympics (french: Jeux olympiques d'été de 2024), officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad (french: Jeux de la XXXIIIe Olympiade, links=no) and also known as Paris 2024, is an upcoming international multi-sport event that is s ...
in Paris.
The only non-structural elements are the four decorative grill-work arches, added in Sauvestre's sketches, which served to make the tower look more substantial and to make a more impressive entrance to the exposition.
A pop-culture movie cliché is that the view from a Parisian window always includes the tower. In reality, since zoning restrictions limit the height of most buildings in Paris to seven storeys, only a small number of tall buildings have a clear view of the tower.
Maintenance
Maintenance of the tower includes applying 60 tons of paint every seven years to prevent it from rust
Rust is an iron oxide, a usually reddish-brown oxide formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the catalytic presence of water or air moisture. Rust consists of hydrous iron(III) oxides (Fe2O3·nH2O) and iron(III) oxide-hydroxide (FeO(OH ...
ing. The tower has been completely repainted at least 19 times since it was built. Lead paint
Lead paint or lead-based paint is paint containing lead. As pigment, lead(II) chromate (, "chrome yellow"), lead(II,IV) oxide, (, "red lead"), and lead(II) carbonate (, "white lead") are the most common forms.. Lead is added to paint to acceler ...
was still being used as recently as 2001 when the practice was stopped out of concern for the environment.
Tourism
Transport
The nearest Paris Métro
The Paris Métro (french: Métro de Paris ; short for Métropolitain ) is a rapid transit system in the Paris metropolitan area, France. A symbol of the Paris, city, it is known for its density within the capital's territorial limits, uniform ar ...
station is Bir-Hakeim and the nearest RER station is Champ de Mars-Tour Eiffel. The tower itself is located at the intersection of the quai Branly and the Pont d'Iéna.
Popularity
More than 300 million people have visited the tower since it was completed in 1889.[ In 2015, there were 6.91 million visitors. The tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world. An average of 25,000 people ascend the tower every day which can result in long queues.
]
Restaurants
The tower has two restaurants: on the first level, and , a gourmet
Gourmet (, ) is a cultural idea associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or haute cuisine, which is characterized by refined, even elaborate preparations and presentations of aesthetically balanced meals of several contrasting, of ...
restaurant with its own lift on the second level. This restaurant has one star in the Michelin Red Guide. It was run by the multi-Michelin star
The Michelin Guides ( ) are a series of guide books that have been published by the French tyre company Michelin since 1900. The Guide awards up to three Michelin stars for excellence to a select few establishments. The acquisition or loss of a ...
chef Alain Ducasse
Alain Ducasse (; born 13 September 1956) is a French-born Monégasque chef. He operates a number of restaurants including Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester which holds three stars (the top rating) in the Michelin Guide.
Early life and career
D ...
from 2007 to 2017. As of May 2019, it is managed by three-star chef Frédéric Anton
Frédéric Anton (, born 15 October 1964) is a French chef, Meilleur Ouvrier de France and three stars at the Guide Michelin since 2007. He was the chef of the restaurant ''Le Pré Catelan'' in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. He is now the chef ...
. It owes its name to the famous science-fiction writer Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...
. Additionally, there is a champagne bar at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
From 1937 until 1981, there was a restaurant near the top of the tower. It was removed due to structural considerations; engineers had determined it was too heavy and was causing the tower to sag. This restaurant was sold to an American restaurateur and transported to New York and then New Orleans. It was rebuilt on the edge of New Orleans' Garden District as a restaurant and later event hall.
Replicas
As one of the most famous landmarks in the world, the Eiffel Tower has been the inspiration for the creation of many replicas and similar towers. An early example is Blackpool Tower
Blackpool Tower is a tourist attraction in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, which was opened to the public on 14 May 1894. When it opened, Blackpool Tower was the List of tallest buildings in the British Empire and the Commonwealth, tallest man m ...
in England. The mayor of Blackpool, Sir John Bickerstaffe, was so impressed on seeing the Eiffel Tower at the 1889 exposition that he commissioned a similar tower to be built in his town. It opened in 1894 and is tall. Tokyo Tower
is a communications and observation tower in the Shiba-koen district of Minato, Tokyo, Japan, built in 1958. At , it is the second- tallest structure in Japan. The structure is an Eiffel Tower-inspired lattice tower that is painted white and i ...
in Japan, built as a communications tower in 1958, was also inspired by the Eiffel Tower.
There are various scale models of the tower in the United States, including a half-scale version at the Paris Las Vegas
Paris Las Vegas is a casino hotel on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Caesars Entertainment and has a 95,263 square-foot casino with over 1,700 slot machines.
The theme is the city of Paris; it includes a hal ...
, Nevada, one in Paris, Texas built in 1993, and two 1:3 scale models at Kings Island
Kings Island is a amusement park located northeast of Cincinnati in Mason, Ohio, United States. Owned and operated by Cedar Fair, the park first opened in 1972 by the Taft Broadcasting Company. It was part of a larger effort to move and expan ...
, located in Mason, Ohio
Mason is a city in southwestern Warren County, Ohio, United States, approximately north of downtown Cincinnati. As of the 2020 census, Mason's population was 34,792.
Mason is home to Kings Island amusement park and one of the largest tennis stad ...
, and Kings Dominion
Kings Dominion is an amusement park located in Doswell, Virginia, north of Richmond, Virginia, Richmond and south of Washington, D.C. Owned and operated by Cedar Fair, the park opened to the public on May 3, 1975, and features more than 60 ri ...
, Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
, amusement parks opened in 1972 and 1975 respectively. Two 1:3 scale models can be found in China, one in Durango, Mexico that was donated by the local French community, and several across Europe.
In 2011, the TV show ''Pricing the Priceless'' on the National Geographic Channel
National Geographic (formerly National Geographic Channel; abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is an American pay television television network, network and flagship (broadcasting), flagship channel owned by the National Geograp ...
speculated that a full-size replica of the tower would cost approximately US$480 million to build. This would be more than ten times the cost of the original (nearly 8 million in 1890 Francs; ~US$40 million in 2018 dollars).
Communications
The tower has been used for making radio transmissions since the beginning of the 20th century. Until the 1950s, sets of aerial wires ran from the cupola
In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome.
The word derives, via Italian, from ...
to anchors on the Avenue de Suffren
The Avenue de Suffren is an avenue situated between the 7th and 15th arrondissements of Paris.
Location and access
The Avenue de Suffren has one of its extremities at quai Branly and the others at boulevard Garibaldi near place de la Rép ...
and Champ de Mars. These were connected to longwave
In radio, longwave, long wave or long-wave, and commonly abbreviated LW, refers to parts of the radio spectrum with wavelengths longer than what was originally called the medium-wave broadcasting band. The term is historic, dating from the e ...
transmitters in small bunkers. In 1909, a permanent underground radio centre was built near the south pillar, which still exists today. On 20 November 1913, the Paris Observatory
The Paris Observatory (french: Observatoire de Paris ), a research institution of the Paris Sciences et Lettres University, is the foremost astronomical observatory of France, and one of the largest astronomical centers in the world. Its histor ...
, using the Eiffel Tower as an aerial, exchanged wireless signals with the United States Naval Observatory
United States Naval Observatory (USNO) is a scientific and military facility that produces geopositioning, navigation and timekeeping data for the United States Navy and the United States Department of Defense. Established in 1830 as the Depo ...
, which used an aerial in Arlington County, Virginia
Arlington County is a County (United States), county in the Virginia, Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the Washington, D.C., District of Co ...
. The object of the transmissions was to measure the difference in longitude between Paris and Washington, D.C. Today, radio and digital television signals are transmitted from the Eiffel Tower.
FM radio
Digital television
A television antenna was first installed on the tower in 1957, increasing its height by . Work carried out in 2000 added a further , giving the current height of . Analogue television signals from the Eiffel Tower ceased on 8 March 2011.
Illumination copyright
The tower and its image have been in the public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work
A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...
since 1993, 70 years after Eiffel's death. In June 1990 a French court ruled that a special lighting display on the tower in 1989 to mark the tower's 100th anniversary was an "original visual creation" protected by copyright. The Court of Cassation
A court of cassation is a high-instance court that exists in some judicial systems. Courts of cassation do not re-examine the facts of a case, they only interpret the relevant law. In this they are appellate courts of the highest instance. In th ...
, France's judicial court of last resort, upheld the ruling in March 1992. The (SETE) now considers any illumination of the tower to be a separate work of art that falls under copyright. As a result, the SNTE alleges that it is illegal to publish contemporary photographs of the lit tower at night without permission in France and some other countries for commercial use. For this reason, it is often rare to find images or videos of the lit tower at night on stock image sites, and media outlets rarely broadcast images or videos of it.
The imposition of copyright has been controversial. The Director of Documentation for what was then called the (SNTE), Stéphane Dieu, commented in 2005: "It is really just a way to manage commercial use of the image, so that it isn't used in ways f which
F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''.
His ...
we don't approve". SNTE made over €1 million from copyright fees in 2002. However, it could also be used to restrict the publication of tourist photographs of the tower at night, as well as hindering non-profit and semi-commercial publication of images of the illuminated tower.
The copyright claim itself has never been tested in courts to date, according to a 2014 article in the ''Art Law Journal'', and there has never been an attempt to track down millions of people who have posted and shared their images of the illuminated tower on the Internet worldwide. It added, however, that permissive situation may arise on commercial use of such images, like in a magazine, on a film poster, or on product packaging.
French doctrine and jurisprudence allows pictures incorporating a copyrighted work as long as their presence is incidental or accessory to the subject being represented, a reasoning akin to the ''de minimis
''De minimis'' is a Latin expression meaning "pertaining to minimal things", normally in the terms ''de minimis non curat praetor'' ("The praetor does not concern himself with trifles") or ''de minimis non curat lex'' ("The law does not concern i ...
'' rule. Therefore, SETE may be unable to claim copyright on photographs of Paris which happen to include the lit tower.
Height changes
The pinnacle height of the Eiffel Tower has changed multiple times over the years as described in the chart below.
Taller structures
The Eiffel Tower was the world's tallest structure when completed in 1889, a distinction it retained until 1929 when the Chrysler Building
The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco skyscraper on the East Side of Manhattan in New York City, at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. At , it is the tallest brick building in the world with a steel fra ...
in New York City was topped out. The tower also lost its standing as the world's tallest tower to the Tokyo Tower
is a communications and observation tower in the Shiba-koen district of Minato, Tokyo, Japan, built in 1958. At , it is the second- tallest structure in Japan. The structure is an Eiffel Tower-inspired lattice tower that is painted white and i ...
in 1958 but retains its status as the tallest freestanding (non-guyed) structure in France.
Lattice towers taller than the Eiffel Tower
Structures in France taller than the Eiffel Tower
See also
* List of tallest buildings and structures in the Paris region
The tallest structure in the City of Paris and the Île-de-France remains the Eiffel Tower in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, 7th arrondissement, 300 meters high ''(or 330 m including the broadcasting antenna at its top)'', completed in 1889 as ...
* List of tallest buildings and structures
The world's tallest human-made structure is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai (of the United Arab Emirates). The building gained the official title of "tallest building in the world" and the tallest self-supported structure at its opening on Januar ...
* List of tallest towers
Several extant building fulfill the engineering definition of a tower: "a tall human structure, always taller than it is wide, for public or regular operational access by humans, but not for living in or office work, and are ''self-supporting' ...
* List of tallest freestanding structures
This is a list of tallest freestanding structures in the world past and present. To be freestanding a structure must not be supported by guy wires, the sea or other types of support. It therefore does not include guyed masts, partially guyed tow ...
* List of tallest freestanding steel structures
This is a list of tallest freestanding steel structures in the world past and present. To be a freestanding steel structure it must not be supported by guy wires, the list therefore does not include guyed masts and the main vertical and lateral str ...
* List of tallest structures built before the 20th century
List of pre-twentieth century structures by height
See also
*History of the tallest buildings in the world
The tallest building in the world, as of , is the Burj Khalifa. The title of " world's tallest building" has been borne by various buil ...
* List of transmission sites
In the following there are lists of sites of notable radio transmitters. During the early history of radio many countries had only a few high power radio stations, operated either by the government or large corporations, which broadcast to the po ...
* Lattice tower
A lattice tower or truss tower is a freestanding vertical framework tower. This construction is widely used in transmission towers carrying high voltage electric power lines, in radio masts and towers (a self-radiating tower or as a support for a ...
* ''Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower ( ; french: links=yes, tour Eiffel ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.
Locally nicknamed "'' ...
'', 1909–1928 painting series by Robert Delaunay
Robert Delaunay (12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941) was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstra ...
References
Notes
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{{Authority control
Articles containing video clips
Buildings and structures in the 7th arrondissement of Paris
Former world's tallest buildings
Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks
Landmarks in France
Michelin Guide starred restaurants in France
Observation towers in France
Restaurant towers
Skyscrapers in Paris
Tourist attractions in Paris
Towers in Paris
Towers completed in 1889
Venues of the 2024 Summer Olympics
Lattice towers
Architectural controversies
1889 establishments in France
Exposition Universelle (1889)
World's fair architecture in Paris
Monuments historiques of Paris