La Tour Eiffel

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On a beautiful sunday afternoon, what could be better than a stroll (a seista crapuleuse, maybe) around the landmark that symbolises France to everyone ...

Wayhayyyyyy it's the Eiffel tower - there now follows what i can best describe as "Eiffel tower porn" :@)

I should leave this page right now if you really can't bear to see other people playing at being tourist, no offense meant...

Originally, in 1798, there came to fruition the idea of promoting french prowess in different domains - notably agricultural and technological.

The resulting success spawned a series of imitations throughout Europe with the event being adopted and held in different countries.

The culmination of which being in London, in 1851, at Chrystal Palace, where other countries were finally invited to take part.

Four years later, trying to out- do Les Anglais, the event was held on Le Champ de Mars where the central theme was increasing better wheat yield and profitability whilst using less physical labour.

It also paved the way for the mellowing of relations between the french and the english, where, for example, cross bred sheep were introduced onto the market (the Southdown-Berrichon)

Thirty or so years later, in preparation for the 1889 Exposition Universelle (the year which symbolised the 100th anniversary of the revolution) , Maurice Koechlin and Emlie Nougier were commissiond by Gustave Eiffel (a rich industrialist) to create an edifice that would symbolise the event.

They took for starting point the Philidelphia centennial tower which measured 100 meters in height (above)

However, Gustave Eiffel (who had already participated in the making of the Statue of Liberty) poo-poohed the idea saying that there was little reason to be had in copying an edifice that already exisited ...

Finally, Stephane Sauvestre submited, in 1884, to Eiffel a new sketch (below) which Eiffel patented under his, Stephane's, Koeclin's and Nougier's names.

Although the conception of the tower wasn't Eiffel's own it was his energy and ressources in finding, what would now be called, "subtractors" to carry out the task that would forever be associated with his name.

Insisiting on using no more than 250 workers, the tower was completed using 18 038 tons of iron, for 4,5 kg/cm² of soil pressure, the work was completed in 1889 for a cost of 1.5 million francs.

In March 1889, work was finished ready for the opening of the exhibition in May of that year.

Once the exhibition had finished, interest died down in the tower, only numbering an average of 149 500 visits over the following year - this despite a reduction of entry prices.

Worried about the prospect of 'his' work being torn down, Eiffel tried to convince the scientific community of it's use and organised conferences and meetings where in 1898 an obeservation post was installed at the very summit of the tower .

In the same year, a telephone cable was installed by Gustave Ferrier who hoped to do away with the reliance on carrier pigeons for the transmission of long distance messages.

Starting from 1921, the tower was used for civil purposes, where upon it was used for beaming radio signals into millions of homes.

In 1922 the first trials using television signals were undertaken which continued up until 1959 where the signals reached 100 million homes and to increase the coverage and broadcasting distance, a supplementary mast was added bringing the height of the now mythical tower up to 320.75 meters
Since the 1960's, massive tourisme has allowed the tower to attain 6 million visitors per year and has necessitated considerable restructration work - lightening of the structure, reconstruction of the stairs and lifts ...

Since the start of the 1970's the Eiffel Tower has become synonimous with France and is often used as a quick reference point for news bulletins with it's profile being readily recognisible to billions of people around the world.

In 1978 the first ever Paris-Dakar motor rally was launched from underneath the tower, concerts by Jean Michel Jarre and Johhny Halliday and numerous films have also used it as a backdrop.
In 2002, 200 million visitors came to the Eiffel Tower, so making it the 5th most visited monument in France.

"Tout homme crée sans le savoir
Comme il respire
Mais l’artiste se sent créer
Son acte engage tout son être
Sa peine bien-aimée
Le fortifie"
In front of the site of the Eiffel Tower and until 1651 there existed a convent on the hill at Chaillot.

After the revolution, Napoleon wanted to create an imperial city to commemorate his son...

However, given the success and adulation ceated by the universal exhibition , it was decided that a 'popular palace' should be created on the site of the ancient ruins.

More recently, in 1937, a fountain, inspired by the then omni-present english garden style, was added to create a cascade over eight steps.