The Eiffel Tower: The History of Paris' Most Famous Landmark

*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the construction written by Gustave Eiffel and others *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents “Being the most striking manifestation of the art of metal structures by which our engineers have shown in Europe, it is one of the most striking of our modern national genius.” – Gustave Eiffel It’s the home of kings, emperors, and aristocrats, and the home of the Champs-Élysées, the Bastille, the Louvre and the salons that fueled the Enlightenment. For foreigners like Benjamin Franklin, it was the most beautiful city in the world, and millions of people still visit those same sites every year. Known as the “City of Light,” Paris seamlessly blends its rich past with all the trappings of a modern city, and the city’s features and qualities are taken for granted today, but Paris was not always that way. In fact, it took nearly half a century of redesigning the city during the 19th century to transform it into the city it is today. Paris’s expansion also required new monuments, administrative buildings, and other public buildings. The urban renewal of Paris coincided with the Neoclassicism movement in art and architecture that had taken hold across Europe, which incorporated the classical architecture of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. All over Paris, builders constructed marble colored buildings with arches, pillars, domes, and neoclassical art that used the themes of antiquity. Fittingly, the construction of the Eiffel Tower for the 1889 World’s Fair was a capstone of sorts to the reconstruction of Paris, and it remains one of the world’s most famous and visited landmarks. Designed as an entrance to the fair, the Eiffel Tower, soaring over 1,050 feet into the air, was an architectural wonder that served as the world’s tallest man-made object for over 40 years. As its designer, Gustave Eiffel, put it, “It seems to me that [if] it had no other rationale than to show that we are not simply the country of entertainers, but also that of engineers and builders called from across the world to build bridges, viaducts, stations and major monuments of modern industry, the Eiffel Tower deserves to be treated with consideration.” Though it may be hard to believe today, the Eiffel Tower was initially met with derision by many Frenchmen, some of whom compared it to the Tower of Babel and complained that the “useless and monstrous” structure would obscure treasures such as Notre Dame. In response to such criticisms, Eiffel himself pointed out, “Can one think that because we are engineers, beauty does not preoccupy us or that we do not try to build beautiful, as well as solid and long lasting structures? Aren't the genuine functions of strength always in keeping with unwritten conditions of harmony? … Besides, there is an attraction, a special charm in the colossal to which ordinary theories of art do not apply.” It’s safe to say that Eiffel was correct. Each year, millions of people refute those original notions by riding to the top and making it the most visited paid monument in the entire world. Indeed, the Eiffel Tower has welcomed over 250 million visitors in less than 130 years. Eiffel had the good fortune of being vindicated in his lifetime, and as he once joked, “I ought to be jealous of the tower. She is more famous than I am.” The Eiffel Tower: The History of Paris’ Most Famous Landmark traces the history of the landmark from its construction to the present day. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Eiffel Tower like never before, in no time at all.