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From Port Said, to Say what?
Gustave Eiffel was a leading innovator in iron, but one of his highest-profile projects is visible only from the inside—his studio created the armature for the Statue of Liberty rising over New York City Harbor. Its internal truss framing and rivets are familiar from the Eiffel Tower’s design with parts for both monuments being forged in the same workshop.
A second iron age
By the time of 1889’s Exposition Universelle, engineering entrepreneur Gustave Eiffel headed a highly successful eponymous business with increasingly global reach. His engineering know-how and depth of experience made wrought iron ascendant in an age during which architects and builders were pivoting away from wood and stone, but when concrete was not yet re-perfected.
So many parts
Was the Eiffel Tower safe, likely to collapse of its own weight, blow over in a storm, or sink, or tilt? Would its shade destroy gardens? Would its presence blight not only the skyline, but also destroy property values? And then there were the aesthetes in high dudgeon. There was a fair bit of drama swirling around the Eiffel Tower from the very beginning.
Quite the future
Her storied past is one reason more than 7 million visitors every year make the pilgrimage to see her for themselves. But I believe it’s her beguiling beauty that is the reason 300 million tourists over the decades have made her Paris’ top attraction, many returning or waiting to visit after sunset, because the Eiffel Tower today is the world’s premier light show.
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