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The Tower at sunrise

The Eiffel Tower (French: Tour Eiffel) is a puddled iron tower built on the Champ de Mars, beside the River Seine, in Paris, France. It is the most famous Paris landmark and is used as a symbol of the city. At the time of its construction in 1889 it was the tallest building in the world, and remained so until 1930. Named after its designer, engineer Gustave Eiffel, it is a premier tourist destination, with over 5.5 million visitors per year.

Pronunciation (IPA): English: /'aɪfəl/, similar to "eye-full"; French: /ɛ'fɛl/, similar to "a-fell".

The tower stands 324 meters (1,063 feet) high, including the antenna.

Background

File:Tour Eiffel nuit Concorde.jpg
The Eiffel Tower from the Pont de la Concorde

The structure was built between 1887 and 1889 as the entrance arch for the Exposition Universelle (1889), a World's fair marking the centennial celebration of the French revolution. It is located at geographic coordinates 48°51′29″N 2°17′40″E / 48.85806°N 2.29444°E / 48.85806; 2.29444. The tower was inaugurated on March 31, 1889, and opened on May 6. Three hundred workers joined together 18,038 pieces of puddled iron, using two and a half million rivets, in a structural design by Maurice Koechlin. The risk of accident was great, for unlike modern skyscrapers the tower is an open frame without any intermediate floors except the two platforms. Yet, because Eiffel took good care of his workers with movable stagings, guard-rails and screens, only one man died (during the installation of Otis Elevator's lifts).

The tower is 300 meters (986 feet) tall, not including the 24-meter television antenna on top. The metal structure weighs 7,300 metric tons, the total weight is 10,100 metric tons. According to the official website for the tower, the summit is reached by 1,665 steps and not, as popularly believed, by 1,792 steps (the same as the year of the First French Republic).

Depending on the ambient temperature, the top of the Eiffel Tower may shift away from the sun by up to eight centimetres, due to expansion of the metal on the side facing the sun.

File:IMG 1750.jpg
Eiffel Tower at night

Maintenance on the tower includes applying 50 metric tons of three graded tones of paint every 7 years to protect it from rust. On occasion, the color of the paint is changed (the tower is currently painted a shade of brown). On the first floor, there are interactive consoles hosting a poll for the color to use for a future session of painting.

The tower was met with resistance from the public when it was first built, many thought it an eyesore. Today, it is widely considered to be one of the most striking pieces of structural art in the world.

One of the great Hollywood movie clichés is that the view from a Parisian window always includes the Eiffel Tower. In reality, the Tower is not visible from a large part of Paris, due to relief and other constructions blocking the sight.

Originally, Eiffel had a permit to leave the tower standing for 20 years, more than recouping his expenses, but, as it proved valuable for communication purposes, it was allowed to stay after the end of the permit.

Installations

The lace-like iron detailing

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the Eiffel Tower has been used for radio transmission. Until the 1950s, there was an aerial running from the top to anchor points on the Champ de Mars. This aerial was fed by long-wave transmitters which were in small housings on the Champ de Mars. Since 1957, the Eiffel Tower has been used as transmission tower for FM and television.

The Eiffel Tower has two restaurants: Altitude 95, on the first floor (95 m above sea level); and the Jules Verne, an expensive gastronomical restaurant on the second floor, with a private elevator. This restaurant has one star in the Michelin Red Guide.

Events

Looking down from the top observation deck

Father Theodor Wulf in 1910 took observations of radiant energy radiation at the top and bottom of the Eiffel Tower, discovering more than was expected at the top, and thereby detecting what are today known as cosmic rays.

In 1925, the con artist Victor Lustig twice "sold" the Eiffel Tower for scrap.

In 1930, the Tower lost the title of the World's tallest structure when the Chrysler Building was completed in New York.

From 1925 to 1934, illuminated signs for Citroën adorned three of the tower's four sides, making it the tallest billboard in the world at the time.

When Adolf Hitler visited occupied Paris in 1940, the lift cables were cut by the French so that he would have to climb the 1,665 steps to the summit - the part to repair them was allegedly impossible to obtain because of the war, though it was working again within hours of the departure of the Nazis. He chose to stay on the ground. A Frenchman also scaled the tower during the German occupation to hang the French flag.

On January 3, 1956 a fire damaged the top of the tower.

In 1959 the present radio antenna was added to the top.

In the 1980s an old restaurant and its supporting iron scaffolding midway up the tower was dismantled; this was purchased and reconstructed in New Orleans, Louisiana, originally as the Tour Eiffel Restaurant, more recently known as the Red Room.

In the year 2000, flashing lights and four high-power searchlights were installed on the tower. Since then the light show has become a nightly event. The searchlights on top of the tower make it a beacon in Paris' night sky.

The tower received its 200,000,000th guest on November 28, 2002.

At 19:20 on July 22, 2003, a fire occurred at the top of the tower in the broadcasting equipment room. The entire tower was evacuated; the fire was extinguished after forty minutes, and there were no reports of injuries.

The 72 names

File:Eiffel.trocadero.arp.750pix.jpg
View to the northwest from the Tower, across the River Seine, showing the Trocadéro gardens and the Palais de Chaillot. A pleasure boat cruises on the river

Main article: The 72 names on the Eiffel Tower.

On the tower, the 72 names of French scientists and engineers are engraved in recognition of their contributions. This engraving was overpainted at the beginning of the 20th century and restored in 1986-1987 by SNTE ("Société Nouvelle d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel"), a company contracted to operate business related to the Tower (the Tower is owned by the City of Paris).

Images of the Eiffel Tower have long been in the public domain; however in 2003, the operating company SNTE installed a new lighting display on the tower, the design of which they then copyrighted. The effect is to put the night-time image of the tower under copyright. It follows that it is no longer legal to publish contemporary photographs of the tower without permission.

The imposition of copyright is not without some controversy. The Director of Documentation for SNTE, Stéphane Dieu, commented in January 2005 "It is really just a way to manage commercial use of the image, so that it isn't used in ways we don't approve". However, it also potentially has the effect of prohibiting tourist photographs of the tower at night from being published. [1]

In a recent decision, the Court of Cassation ruled that an architect could not claim copyright over images including one building the design of which they held the copyright of if the photograph encompasses a larger area. This seems to indicate that SNTE cannot claim copyright on photographs of Paris incorporating the lighted tower at night.

It should be noted that under American law, copyright does not go so far, and photography of a publicly visible building is freely permitted, whether or not the photograph encompasses a larger area or just the building itself. However, copyright infringers could potentially be sued for civil tort before French courts, and damages recouped by asking the execution of the decision from American courts.

Appearance in film

The Tower is made from 18,038 pieces of puddled iron

Imitations and reproductions

Several reproductions/models of the Eiffel Tower (often smaller-scale) exist.

Imitations (similar towers, not scale models)

View southeast from the Tower, down the Champ de Mars, with the Tour Montparnasse (Montparnasse Tower) in the distance

In order of decreasing height:

Reproductions (scale models)

In order of decreasing height:

Further remarkable lattice towers

Many remarkable lattice towers were and are nicknamed Eiffel Tower. The Radio Tower Gliwice was nicknamed "Eiffel Tower of Upper Silesia" and the wood framework tower of the transmitter Ismaning, which was demolished in 1983 was called the "Bavarian Eiffel Tower".

See also


Access

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