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Today it’s impossible to conceive of the Paris skyline without the Eiffel Tower, but 130 years ago the structure hadn’t even begun to be built.
In 1886 a competition was held for the construction of a tower, to be built as part of the Exposition Universelle fair in Paris in 1889. The competition was won by Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923), a civil engineer who had already built many bridges and other metal structures, including the internal structure of the Statue of Liberty.
The exhibition marked the 100th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille – and so it was fitting that the engineer chosen to build the Eiffel Tower should have built dominating structures in two countries linked by their revolutionary past.
The 1889 fair had engineering at its heart: visitors were transported by 1.9 miles of 2ft-
gauge railway which carried 6,342,446 visitors in just six months of operation.
At the fair’s entrance was the tower, one of a number of structures put in place for the event. It was originally intended to be temporary and easy to dismantle. The tower weighed 7,300 tons (excluding the hydraulic machinery and foundations) and was held together by more than 2.5 million rivets, yet it’s so lightweight that if reduced to one-thousandth of its size it would weigh only 7g.
Eiffel was guaranteed “enjoyment of the tower” for 20 years, after which ownership would pass to the city of Paris. Construction began on 28 January 1887. Each stage was completed on schedule, and the tower was opened on 31 March 1889. However, the workers had to work through the night to have it ready for opening day. Monsieur Salles (Eiffel’s son-in-law) said: “No soldier on the battlefield deserved better mention than these humble toilers, who will never go down in history”.
Originally, there were no lifts, so visitors had to climb 1,665 steps to reach the top. It took an hour and five minutes to do so, and Gustave Eiffel climbed them all and flew the Tricolour from the top of the tower. However, hydraulic lifts were soon installed using three different systems, no doubt to the relief of future visitors!
The Eiffel Tower was immediately hugely popular with tourists and locals. During the six months of the fair, almost 2 million people came to visit it. Some of these early visitors were members of the IMechE, who held their summer meeting in Paris in 1889, and were given a personal tour by Gustave Eiffel. He was made an honorary IMechE member.
The visit is recorded in the institution’s Proceedings, which described the new structure as an iron pyramid composed of four individual great curved columns, connected together by belts of girders at the different storeys which were united at the top and were connected by “ordinary” bracing. The tower’s design was wind resistant as well as having lightning protection built in – 19-inch diameter cast-iron pipes passed through the water-bearing strata below the level of the Seine to a depth of 60ft, with their upper ends connected to the tower’s ironwork.
The Eiffel Tower is arguably the most enduring symbol of the exposition, but it was far from the only engineering spectacle. A Machine Hall with a large central dome by Louis Béroud held items relating to mining, railways, sugar and boiler machinery, metallurgy, electricity and public works.
The exposition also included a reconstruction of the Bastille and its surrounding neighbourhood, featuring an interior courtyard covered with a blue ceiling decorated with fleur-de-lys and used as a ballroom and gathering place.
Did you know?
The Eiffel Tower has hosted almost 250 million visitors since it was opened. It was originally intended to last for only 20 years. One of the things that saved it was its use for radio signals – it transmitted France’s first public radio programme in 1925.
Gustave Eiffel (above) went on to set up a company specialising in metal structural work, which built many bridges in France.