Eiffel Tower
La Tour Eiffel
The Eiffel Tower as seen from the Champ de Mars
Record height
Tallest in the world from 1889 to 1930[I]
General information
Type	Observation tower, Radio broadcasting tower
Location	Paris, France
Coordinates	48°51′30″N 2°17′40″E / 48.8583°N 2.2945°E / 48.8583; 2.2945
Construction started	1887
Completed	1889
Opening	31 March 1889
Height
Antenna spire	324.00 m (1,063 ft)
Roof	300.65 m (986 ft)
Top floor	273.00 m (896 ft)
Technical details
Floor count	3
Elevators	9
Design and construction
Owner	City of Paris, France
Management	Société d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE)
Main contractor	Compagnie des Establissments Eiffel
Architect	Stephen Sauvestre
Structural engineer	Maurice Koechlin, Émile Nouguier
References
[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]

The Eiffel Tower (French: La Tour Eiffel, [tuʁ ɛfɛl], nickname La dame de fer, the iron lady) is a puddle iron^[10] lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris. Built in 1889 as the entrance arch to the 1889 World's Fair, it has become both a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world. The tower is the tallest building in Paris^[11] and the most-visited paid monument in the world; millions of people ascend it every year. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.

The tower stands 320 metres (1,050 ft) tall, about the same height as an 81-story building. During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to assume the title of the tallest man-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years, until the Chrysler Building in New York City was built in 1930. However, because of the addition, in 1957, of the antenna atop the Eiffel Tower, it is now taller than the Chrysler Building. Not including broadcast antennas, it is the second-tallest structure in France, after the Millau Viaduct.

The tower has three levels for visitors. Tickets can be purchased to ascend, by stairs or lift (elevator), to the first and second levels. The walk from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the walk from the first to the second level. The third and highest level is accessible only by lift - stairs exist but they are not usually open for public use. Both the first and second levels feature restaurants.

The tower has become the most prominent symbol of both Paris and France, often in the establishing shot of films set in the city.

History[link]

Origin[link]

Eiffel Tower under construction in July 1888

The design of the Eiffel Tower was originated by Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, two senior engineers who worked for the Compagnie des Establissments Eiffel after discussion about a suitable centrepiece for the proposed 1889 Exposition Universelle, a World's Fair which would celebrate the centennial of the French Revolution. In May 1884 Koechlin, working at his home, made an outline drawing of their scheme, described by him as "a great pylon, consisting of four lattice girders standing apart at the base and coming together at the top, joined together by metal trusses at regular intervals".^[12] Initially Eiffel himself showed little enthusiasm, but he did sanction further study of the project, and the two engineers then asked Stephen Sauvestre, the head of company's architectural department, to contribute to the design. Sauvestre added decorative arches to the base, a glass pavilion to the first level and other embellishments. This enhanced version gained Eiffel's support, and he bought the rights to the patent on the design which Koechlin, Nougier and Sauvestre had taken out, and the design was exhibited at the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in the autumn of 1884 under the company name. On 30 March 1885 Eiffel read a paper on the project to the Société des Ingiénieurs Civils: after discussing the technical problems and emphasising the practical uses of the tower, he finished his talk by saying that the tower would symbolise^[13]

"not only the art of the modern engineer, but also the century of Industry and Science in which we are living, and for which the way was prepared by the great scientific movement of the eighteenth century and by the Revolution of 1789, to which this monument will be built as an expression of France's gratitude."

Little happened until the beginning of 1886, when Jules Grévy was re-elected as President and Édouard Lockroy was appointed as Minister for Trade. A budget for the Exposition was passed and on 1 May Lockroy announced an alteration to the terms of the open competition which was being held for a centerpiece for the exposition, which effectively made the choice of Eiffel's design a foregone conclusion: all entries had to include a study for a 300 m (980 ft) four-sided metal tower on the Champ de Mars.^[14] On 12 May a commission was set up to examine Eiffel's scheme and its rivals and on 12 June it presented its decision, which was that all the proposals except Eiffel's were either impractical or insufficiently worked out. After some debate about the exact site for the tower, a contract was finally signed on 8 January 1887. This was signed by Eiffel acting in his own capacity rather than as the representative of his company, and granted him one and a half million francs toward the construction costs: less than a quarter of the estimated cost of six and a half million francs. Eiffel was to receive all income from the commercial exploitation of the tower during the exhibition and for the following twenty years. Eiffel later established a separate company to manage the tower, putting up half the necessary capital himself.^[15]

The "Artists Protest"[link]

The projected tower had been a subject of some controversy, attracting criticism both from those who did not believe that it was feasible and also from those who objected on artistic grounds. Their objections were an expression of a longstanding debate about relationship between architecture and engineering. This came to a head as work began at the Champ de Mars: A "Committee of Three Hundred" (one member for each metre of the tower's height) was formed, led by the prominent architect Charles Garnier and including some of the most important figures of the French arts establishment, including Adolphe Bouguereau, Guy de Maupassant, Charles Gounod and Jules Massenet: a petition was sent to Charles Alphand, the Minister of Works and Commissioner for the Exposition, and was published by Le Temps.^[16]

"We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection…of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower … To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years … we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal"

These criticisms were masterfully dealt with by Édouard Lockroy in a letter of support written to Alphand, ironically^[17] saying "Judging by the stately swell of the rhythms, the beauty of the metaphors, the elegance of its delicate and precise style, one can tell that …this protest is the result of collaboration of the most famous writers and poets of our time", and going on to point out that the protest was irrelevant since the project had been decided upon months before and was already under construction. Indeed, Garnier had been a member of the Tower Commission that had assessed the various proposals, and had raised no objection. Eiffel was similarly unworried, pointing out to a journalist that it was premature to judge the effect of the tower solely on the basis of the drawings, that the Champ de Mars was distant enough from the monuments mentioned in the protest for there to be little risk of the tower overwhelming them, and putting the aesthetic argument for the Tower: "Do not the laws of natural forces always conform to the secret laws of harmony?"^[18]

Some of the protestors were to change their minds when the tower was built: others remained unconvinced. Guy de Maupassant^[19] supposedly ate lunch in the Tower's restaurant every day. When asked why, he answered that it was the one place in Paris where one could not see the structure. Today, the Tower is widely considered to be a striking piece of structural art.

Construction[link]

Bust of Gustave Eiffel, at the base of the Eiffel Tower by sculptor Antoine Bourdelle

Work on the foundations started in January 1887. Those for the east and south legs were straightforward, each leg resting on four 2 m (6.6 ft) concrete slabs, one for each of the principal girders of each leg but the other two, being closer to the river Seine were more complicated: each slab needed two piles installed by using compressed-air caissons 15 m (49 ft) long and 6 m (20 ft) in diameter driven to a depth of 22 m (72 ft)^[20] to support the concrete slabs, which were 6 m (20 ft) thick. Each of these slabs supported a block built of limestone each with an inclined top to bear a supporting shoe for the ironwork. Each shoe was anchored into the stonework by a pair of bolts 10 cm (4 in) in diameter and 7.5 m (25 ft) long. The foundations were complete by 30 June and the erection of the ironwork began. The very visible work on-site was complemented by the enormous amount of exacting preparatory work that was entailed: the drawing office produced 1,700 general drawings and 3,629 detailed drawings of the 18,038 different parts needed: the^[21] The task of drawing the components was complicated by the complex angles involved in the design and the degree of precision required: the position of rivet holes was specified to within 0.1 mm (0.04 in) and angles worked out to one second of arc. The finished components, some already riveted together into sub-assemblies, arrived on horse-drawn carts from the factory in the nearby Parisian suburb of Levallois-Perret and were first bolted together, the bolts being replaced by rivets as construction progressed. No drilling or shaping was done on site: if any part did not fit it was sent back to the factory for alteration. In all there were 18,038 pieces of puddle iron using two and a half million rivets.^[22]

At first the legs were constructed as cantilevers but about halfway to the first level construction was paused in order to construct a substantial timber scaffold. This caused a renewal of the concerns about the structural soundness of the project, and sensational headlines such as "Eiffel Suicide!" and "Gustave Eiffel has gone mad: he has been confined in an Asylum" appeared in the popular press.^[23] At this stage a small "creeper" crane was installed in each leg, designed to move up the tower as construction progressed and making use of the guides for the lifts which were to be fitted in each leg. The critical stage of joining the four legs at the first level was complete by March 1888. Although the metalwork had been prepared with the utmost precision, provision had been made to carry out small adjustments in order to precisely align the legs: hydraulic jacks were fitted to the shoes at the base of each leg, each capable of exerting a force of 800 tonnes, and in addition the legs had been intentionally constructed at a slightly steeper angle than necessary, being supported by sandboxes on the scaffold.

No more than three hundred workers were employed on site, and because Eiffel took safety precautions, including the use of movable stagings, guard-rails and screens, only one man died during construction.

Inauguration and the 1889 Exposition[link]

The main structural work was completed at the end of March 1889 and on the 31st Eiffel celebrated this by leading a group of government officials, accompanied by representatives of the press, to the top of the tower. Since the lifts were not yet in operation, the ascent was made by foot, and took over an hour, Eiffel frequently stopping to make explanations of various features. Most of the party chose to stop at the lower levels, but a few, including Nouguier, Compagnon, the President of the City Council and reporters from Le Figaro and Le Monde Illustré completed the climb. At 2.35 Eiffel hoisted a large tricolore, to the accompaniment of a 25-gun salute fired from the lower level.^[24] There was still work to be done, particularly on the lifts and the fitting out of the facilities for visitors, and the tower was not opened to the public until nine days after the opening of the Exposition on 6 May, and even then the lifts had not been completed.

The tower was an immediate success with the public, and lengthy queues formed to make the ascent. Tickets cost 2 francs for the first level, 3 for the second and 5 for the top, with half-price admission on Sundays, and by the end of the exhibition there had been nearly two million visitors.^[25]

Eiffel had a permit for the tower to stand for 20 years; it was to be dismantled in 1909, when its ownership would revert to the City of Paris. The City had planned to tear it down (part of the original contest rules for designing a tower was that it could be easily demolished) but as the tower proved valuable for communication purposes, it was allowed to remain after the expiry of the permit. In the opening weeks of the First World War the powerful radio transmitters using the tower were used to jam German communications, seriously hindering their advance on Paris and contributing to the Allied victory at the First Battle of the Marne^[26].

Subsequent events[link]

Panoramic view during ascension of the Eiffel Tower by the Lumière brothers, 1898

Franz Reichelt's preparations and fall from the Eiffel Tower.

10 September 1889

Thomas Edison visited the tower. He signed the guestbook with the following message—

To M Eiffel the Engineer the brave builder of so gigantic and original specimen of modern Engineering from one who has the greatest respect and admiration for all Engineers including the Great Engineer the Bon Dieu, Thomas Edison.

19 October 1901

Alberto Santos-Dumont in his Dirigible No.6 won a 10,000-franc prize offered by Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe for the first person to make a flight from St Cloud to the Eiffel tower and back in less than half an hour.

1910

Father Theodor Wulf measured radiant energy at the top and bottom of the tower. He found more at the top than expected, incidentally discovering what are today known as cosmic rays.^[27]

4 February 1912

Austrian tailor Franz Reichelt died after jumping 60 metres from the first deck of Eiffel tower with his home-made parachute.

1914

A radio transmitter located in the tower jammed German radio communications during the lead-up to the First Battle of the Marne.

1925

The con artist Victor Lustig "sold" the tower for scrap metal on two separate, but related occasions.^[28]

1930

The tower lost the title of the world's tallest structure when the Chrysler Building was completed in New York City.

1925 to 1934

Illuminated signs for Citroën adorned three of the tower's four sides, making it the tallest advertising space in the world at the time.

1940–1944

Upon the German occupation of Paris in 1940, the lift cables were cut by the French so that Adolf Hitler would have to climb the steps to the summit. The parts to repair them were allegedly impossible to obtain because of the war. In 1940 German soldiers had to climb to the top to hoist the swastika^{[citation needed]}, but the flag was so large it blew away just a few hours later, and was replaced by a smaller one. When visiting Paris, Hitler chose to stay on the ground. It was said that Hitler conquered France, but did not conquer the Eiffel Tower. A Frenchman scaled the tower during the German occupation to hang the French flag. In August 1944, when the Allies were nearing Paris, Hitler ordered General Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, to demolish the tower along with the rest of the city. Von Choltitz disobeyed the order. Some say Hitler was later persuaded to keep the tower intact so it could later be used for communications. The lifts of the Tower were working normally within hours of the Liberation of Paris.^{[citation needed]}

3 January 1956

A fire damaged the top of the tower.

1957

The present radio antenna was added to the top.

1980s

A restaurant and its supporting iron scaffolding midway up the tower was dismantled; it was purchased and reconstructed on St. Charles Avenue and Josephine Street in the Garden District of New Orleans, Louisiana, by entrepreneurs John Onorio and Daniel Bonnot, originally as the Tour Eiffel Restaurant, later as the Red Room and now as the Cricket Club (owned by the New Orleans Culinary Institute). The restaurant was re-assembled from 11,000 pieces that crossed the Atlantic in a 40-foot (12 m) cargo container.

31 March 1984

Robert Moriarty flew a Beechcraft Bonanza through the arches of the tower.^[29]

1987

A.J. Hackett made one of his first bungee jumps from the top of the Eiffel Tower, using a special cord he had helped develop. Hackett was arrested by the Paris police upon reaching the ground.^[30]

27 October 1991

Thierry Devaux, along with mountain guide Hervé Calvayrac, performed a series of acrobatic figures of bungee jumping (not allowed) from the second floor of the Tower. Facing the Champ de Mars, Thierry Devaux was using an electric winch between each figure to go back up. When firemen arrived, he stopped after the sixth bungee jump.^[31]

New Year's Eve 1999

The Eiffel Tower played host to Paris's Millennium Celebration. On this occasion, flashing lights and four high-power searchlights were installed on the tower, and fireworks were set off all over it. An exhibition above a cafeteria on the first floor commemorates this event. Since then, the light show has become a nightly event. The searchlights on top of the tower make it a beacon in Paris's night sky, and the 20,000 flash bulbs give the tower a sparkly appearance every hour on the hour.^[32]

28 November 2002

The tower received its 200,000,000th guest.^[33][34]

2004

The Eiffel Tower began hosting an ice skating rink on the first floor each winter.^[35]

Gallery[link]

This section looks like an image gallery. Wikipedia policy discourages galleries of random images of the article subject; please improve or remove the section accordingly, moving freely licensed images to Wikimedia Commons if not already hosted there.

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  From the highest platform.

• 

  The Eiffel Tower at sunrise from the Trocadero

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  Eiffel Tower Construction view: girders at the first storey

• 

  The Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 Exposition Universelle

• 

  Lightning strikes the Eiffel Tower on 3 June 1902, at 9:20 pm

• 

  25 August 1944: American soldiers watch the Eiffel Tower during the Second World War

Design of the tower[link]

Material[link]

The Eiffel Tower from below

The puddle iron structure of the Eiffel Tower weighs 7,300 tonnes, while the entire structure, including non-metal components, is approximately 10,000 tonnes. As a demonstration of the economy of design, if the 7,300 tonnes of the metal structure were melted down it would fill the 125-metre-square base to a depth of only 6 cm (2.36 in), assuming the density of the metal to be 7.8 tonnes per cubic metre. Depending on the ambient temperature, the top of the tower may shift away from the sun by up to 18 cm (7.1 in) because of thermal expansion of the metal on the side facing the sun.

Wind considerations[link]

At the time the tower was built many people were shocked by its daring shape. Eiffel was criticised for the design and accused of trying to create something artistic, or inartistic according to the viewer, without regard to engineering. Eiffel and his engineers, however, as experienced bridge builders, understood the importance of wind forces and knew that if they were going to build the tallest structure in the world they had to be certain it would withstand the wind. In an interview reported in the newspaper Le Temps, Eiffel said:

Now to what phenomenon did I give primary concern in designing the Tower? It was wind resistance. Well then! I hold that the curvature of the monument's four outer edges, which is as mathematical calculation dictated it should be […] will give a great impression of strength and beauty, for it will reveal to the eyes of the observer the boldness of the design as a whole.^[36]

Researchers have found that Eiffel used empirical and graphical methods accounting for the effects of wind rather than a specific mathematical formula. Careful examination of the tower shows a basically exponential shape; actually two different exponentials, the lower section overdesigned to ensure resistance to wind forces. Several mathematical explanations have been proposed over the years for the success of the design; the most recent is described as a nonlinear integral equation based on counterbalancing the wind pressure on any point on the tower with the tension between the construction elements at that point.^[37][38] As a demonstration of the tower's effectiveness in wind resistance, it sways only 6–7 cm (2–3 in) in the wind.^[37][38][39]

Accommodation[link]

When built, the first level contained two restaurants: an "Anglo-American Bar", and a 250 seat theatre. A 2.6 m (8 ft 6 in) promenade ran around the outside.

On the second level, the French newspaper Le Figaro had an office and a printing press, where a special souvenir edition, Le Figaro de la Tour, was produced. There was also a pâtisserie.

On the third level were laboratories for various experiments and a small apartment reserved for Gustave Eiffel to entertain guests. This is now open to the public, complete with period decorations and lifelike models of Gustave and some guests.

Engraved names[link]

Gustave Eiffel engraved on the tower seventy-two names of French scientists, engineers and other notable people. This engraving was painted over at the beginning of the twentieth century but restored in 1986–1987 by the Société Nouvelle d'exploitation de la Tour Eiffel, a company contracted to operate business related to the Tower.

Maintenance[link]

Maintenance of the tower includes applying 50 to 60 tonnes of paint every seven years to protect it from rust. The height of the Eiffel Tower varies by 15 cm due to temperature.

Aesthetic considerations[link]

In order to enhance the impression of height, three separate colours of paint are used on the tower, with the darkest on the bottom and the lightest at the top.^[40] On occasion the colour of the paint is changed; the tower is currently painted a shade of bronze.^[41] On the first floor there are interactive consoles hosting a poll for the colour to use for a future session of painting.

The only non-structural elements are the four decorative grillwork arches, added in Stephen Sauvestre's sketches, which served to reassure visitors that the structure was safe, and to frame views of other nearby architecture.^[42][43][44]

One of the great Hollywood movie clichés is that the view from a Parisian window always includes the tower. In reality, since zoning restrictions limit the height of most buildings in Paris to 7 stories, only a very few of the taller buildings have a clear view of the tower.

Panorama of Paris from the Eiffel Tower

Tourism[link]

Popularity[link]

More than 200,000,000 people have visited the tower since its construction in 1889,^[45] including 6,719,200 in 2006.^[39] The tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world.^[46]

Passenger lifts[link]

View of Eiffel Tower from the Montparnasse Tower.

Ground to the second level[link]

The original lifts (elevators) to the first and second floors were provided by two companies. Both companies had to overcome many technical obstacles as neither company (or indeed any company) had experience with installing lifts climbing to such heights with large loads. The slanting tracks with changing angles further complicated the problems. The East and West lifts were supplied by the French company Roux Combaluzier Lepape, using hydraulically powered chains and rollers. The North and South lifts were provided by the American company Otis using car designs similar to the original installation but using an improved hydraulic and cable scheme. The French lifts had a very poor performance and were replaced with the current installations in 1897 (West Pillar) and 1899 (East Pillar) by Fives-Lille using an improved hydraulic and rope scheme. Both of the original installations operated broadly on the principle of the Fives-Lille lifts.^[47][48]

The Fives-Lille lifts from ground level to the first and second levels are operated by cables and pulleys driven by massive water-powered pistons. The hydraulic scheme was somewhat unusual for the time in that it included three large counterweights of 200 tonnes each sitting on top of hydraulic rams which doubled up as accumulators for the water. As the lifts ascend the inclined arc of the pillars, the angle of ascent changes. The two lift cabs are kept more or less level and indeed are level at the landings. The cab floors do take on a slight angle at times between landings.

The Eiffel Tower illuminated in blue to celebrate the French presidency of the EU (July 2008)

The principle behind the lifts is similar to the operation of a block and tackle but in reverse. Two large hydraulic rams (over 1 metre diameter) with a 16 metre travel are mounted horizontally in the base of the pillar which pushes a carriage (the French word for it translates as chariot and this term will be used henceforth to distinguish it from the lift carriage) with 16 large triple sheaves mounted on it. There are 14 similar sheaves mounted statically. Six wire ropes are rove back and forth between the sheaves such that each rope passes between the 2 sets of sheaves 7 times. The ropes then leave the final sheaves on the chariot and pass up through a series of guiding sheaves to above the second floor and then through a pair of triple sheaves back down to the lift carriage again passing guiding sheaves.

This arrangement means that the lift carriage, complete with its cars and passengers, travels 8 times the distance that the rams move the chariot, the 128 metres from the ground to the second floor. The force exerted by the rams also has to be 8 times the total weight of the lift carriage, cars and passengers, plus extra to account for various losses such as friction. The hydraulic fluid was water, normally stored in three accumulators, complete with counterbalance weights. To make the lift ascend, water was pumped using an electrically driven pump from the accumulators to the two rams. Since the counterbalance weights provided much of the pressure required, the pump only had to provide the extra effort. For the descent, it was only necessary to allow the water to flow back to the accumulators using a control valve. The lifts were operated by an operator perched precariously underneath the lift cars. His position (with a dummy operator) can still be seen on the lifts today.

The Fives-Lille lifts were completely upgraded in 1986 to meet modern safety requirements and to make the lifts easier to operate. A new computer-controlled system was installed which completely automated the operation. One of the three counterbalances was taken out of use, and the cars were replaced with a more modern and lighter structure. Most importantly, the main driving force was removed from the original water pump such that the water hydraulic system provided only a counterbalancing function. The main driving force was transferred to a 320 kW electrically driven oil hydraulic pump which drives a pair of hydraulic motors on the chariot itself, thus providing the motive power. The new lift cars complete with their carriage and a full 92 passenger load weigh 22 tonnes.

Owing to elasticity in the ropes and the time taken to get the cars level with the landings, each lift in normal service takes an average of 8 minutes and 50 seconds to do the round trip, spending an average of 1 minute and 15 seconds at each floor. The average journey time between floors is just 1 minute.

The original Otis lifts in the North and South pillars in their turn proved to be inferior to the new (in 1899) French lifts and were scrapped from the South pillar in 1900 and from the North pillar in 1913 after failed attempts to repower them with an electric motor. The North and South pillars were to remain without lifts until 1965 when increasing visitor numbers persuaded the operators to install a relatively standard and modern cable hoisted system in the north pillar using a cable-hauled counterbalance weight, but hoisted by a block and tackle system to reduce its travel to one third of the lift travel. The counterbalance is clearly visible within the structure of the North pillar. This latter lift was upgraded in 1995 with new cars and computer controls.

The South pillar acquired a completely new fairly standard electrically driven lift in 1983 to serve the Jules Verne restaurant. This was also supplied by Otis. A further four-ton service lift was added to the South pillar in 1989 by Otis to relieve the main lifts when moving relatively small loads or even just maintenance personnel.

The East and West hydraulic (water) lift works are on display and, at least in theory, are open to the public in a small museum located in base of the East and West tower, which is somewhat hidden from public view. Because the massive mechanism requires frequent lubrication and attention, public access is often restricted. However, when open, the wait times are much less than the other, more popular, attractions. The rope mechanism of the North tower is visible to visitors as they exit from the lift.

Second to the third level[link]

The original lifts from the second to the third floor were also of a water-powered hydraulic design supplied by Léon Edoux. Instead of using a separate counterbalance, the two lift cars counterbalanced each other. A pair of 81-metre-long hydraulic rams were mounted on the second level reaching nearly halfway up to the third level. A lift car was mounted on top of the rams. Ropes ran from the top of this car up to a sheave on the third level and back down to a second car. The result of this arrangement was that each car only travelled half the distance between the second and third levels and passengers were required to change lifts halfway walking between the cars along a narrow gangway with a very impressive and relatively unobstructed downward view. The ten-ton cars held 65 passengers each or up to four tons.

One interesting feature of the original installation was that the hoisting rope ran through guides to retain it on windy days to prevent it flapping and becoming damaged. The guides were mechanically moved out of the way of the ascending car by the movement of the car itself. In spite of some antifreeze being added to the water that operated this system, it nevertheless had to close to the public from November to March each year.

The original lifts complete with their hydraulic mechanism were completely scrapped in 1982 after 97 years of service. They were replaced with two pairs of relatively standard rope hoisted cars which were able to operate all the year round. The cars operate in pairs with one providing the counterbalance for the other. Neither car can move unless both sets of doors are closed and both operators have given a start command. The commands from the cars to the hoisting mechanism are by radio obviating the necessity of a control cable. The replacement installation also has the advantage that the ascent can be made without changing cars and has reduced the ascent time from 8 minutes (including change) to 1 minute and 40 seconds. This installation also has guides for the hoisting ropes but they are electrically operated. The guide once it has moved out of the way as the car ascends automatically reverses when the car has passed to prevent the mechanism becoming snagged on the car on the downward journey in the event it has failed to completely clear the car. Unfortunately these lifts do not have the capacity to move as many people as the three public lower lifts and long lines to ascend to the third level are common. Most of the intermediate level structure present on the tower today was installed when the lifts were replaced and allows maintenance workers to take the lift halfway.

The replacement of these lifts allowed the restructuring of the criss-cross beams in upper part of the tower and further allowed the installation of two emergency staircases. These replaced the dangerous winding stairs that were installed when the tower was constructed.

Restaurants[link]

The tower has two restaurants: Le 58 tour Eiffel, on the first floor 311 ft (95 m) above sea level; and the Le Jules Verne, a gastronomical restaurant on the second floor, with a private lift. This restaurant has one star in the Michelin Red Guide. In January 2007, the multi-Michelin star chef Alain Ducasse was brought in to run Jules Verne.^[49]

Attempted relocation[link]

According to interviews given in the early 1980s, Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau negotiated a secret agreement with French President Charles de Gaulle for the tower to be dismantled and temporarily relocated to Montreal to serve as a landmark and tourist attraction during Expo 67. The plan was allegedly vetoed by the company which operated the tower out of fear that the French government could refuse permission for the tower to be restored to its original location.^[50]

Economics[link]

The American TV show Pricing the Priceless speculates that in 2011 the tower would cost about $480,000,000 to build, that the land under the tower is worth $350,000,000, and that the scrap value of the tower is worth $3,500,000. The TV show estimates the tower makes a profit of about $29,000,000 per year, though it is unlikely that the Eiffel Tower is managed so as to maximize profit.

It costs $5,300,000 to repaint the tower, which is done once every seven years. The electric bill is $400,000 per year for 7.5 million kilowatt-hours.

The Tokyo Tower in Japan is a very similar structure of very similar size. It was finished in 1958 at a final cost of ¥2.8 billion ($8.4 million in 1958).

Reproductions[link]

Replica at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel, Nevada, United States

Eiffel Tower on Bastille Day

The Eiffel Tower as seen from Rue de Monttessuy in the 7th arrondissement.

As one of the most iconic images in the world, the Eiffel Tower has been the inspiration for the creation of over 30 duplicates and similar towers around the world.

Communications[link]

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the tower has been used for radio transmission. Until the 1950s, an occasionally modified set of antenna wires ran from the summit to anchors on the Avenue de Suffren and Champ de Mars. They were connected to long-wave transmitters in small bunkers; in 1909, a permanent underground radio centre was built near the south pillar and still exists today. On 20 November 1913, the Paris Observatory, using the Eiffel Tower as an antenna, exchanged sustained wireless signals with the United States Naval Observatory which used an antenna in Arlington, Virginia. The object of the transmissions was to measure the difference in longitude between Paris and Washington, D.C.^[51] Today, both radio and television stations broadcast their signals from the top of the Eiffel.

FM-radio[link]

Television[link]

Analogue[link]

Analogue television signals ceased from the Eiffel Tower on 8 March 2011.

Image copyright claims[link]

The tower and its representations have long been in the public domain. However, a French court ruled, in June 1990, that a special lighting display on the tower in 1989, for the tower's 100th anniversary, was an "original visual creation" protected by copyright. The Court of Cassation, France's judicial court of last resort, upheld the ruling in March 1992.^[52] The Société d'exploitation de la tour Eiffel (SETE) now considers any illumination of the tower to be under copyright.^[53] As a result, it is no longer legal to publish contemporary photographs of the tower at night without permission in France and some other countries.

The imposition of copyright has been controversial. The Director of Documentation for what was then the Société nouvelle d'exploitation de la tour Eiffel (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,^[54] as well as hindering non-profit and semi-commercial publication of images of the tower. Besides, French doctrine and jurisprudence traditionally allow pictures incorporating a copyrighted work as long as their presence is incidental or accessory to the main represented subject,^[55] a reasoning akin to the de minimis rule. Thus, SETE could not claim copyright on photographs or panoramas of Paris incorporating the lit tower.

In popular culture[link]

As a global landmark, the Eiffel Tower is featured in media including films, video games, and television shows.G

In the 2011 game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, in the mission "Iron Lady", the tower collapses into the River Siene after an American Bomber bombs the tower to kill the Russian forces.

In a commitment ceremony in 2007, Erika Eiffel, an American woman famously "married" the Eiffel Tower. Her relationship with the tower has been the subject of extensive global publicity.^[56]

Taller structures[link]

Although it was the world's tallest structure when completed in 1889, the Eiffel Tower has since lost its standing both as the tallest lattice tower and as the tallest structure in France.

Lattice towers taller than the Eiffel Tower[link]

Architectural structures in France taller than the Eiffel Tower[link]

Gallery[link]

This section looks like an image gallery. Wikipedia policy discourages galleries of random images of the article subject; please improve or remove the section accordingly, moving freely licensed images to Wikimedia Commons if not already hosted there.

See also[link]

Paris portal

• List of tallest buildings and structures in the Paris region
• List of tallest buildings and structures in the world
• List of tallest freestanding structures in the world
• List of tallest towers in the world

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• 1889: La Tour Eiffel et L’Exposition Universelle Paris: Editions de la Reunion des Musees Nationaux, 1989 [exhibition catalog].
• Chanson, Hubert (2009). Hydraulic Engineering Legends Listed on the Eiffel Tower, Great Rivers History, ASCE-EWRI Publication, Proceedings of the History Symposium of the World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2009, Kansas City, USA, 17–19 May, J.R. ROGERS Ed., pp. 1–7 (ISBN 978-0-7844-1032-5)
• Frémy, Dominique, Quid de la Tour Eiffel, Robert Lafont, Paris (1989) – out of print
• The Engineer: The Paris Exhibition, 3 May 1889 (Vol. XLVII). London: Office for Advertisements and Publication.
• Jonnes, Jill. Eiffel's Tower Viking, 2009
• Harvie, David I Eiffel: The Genius Who Reinvented Himself Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton, 2006 ISBN 0-7509-3309-7
• Loyrette, Henri Gustave Eiffel New York: Rizzoli, 1985. ISBN 0-8478-0631-6
• Watson, William. Paris Universal Exposition: Civil Engineering, Public Works, and Architecture. Washington [DC]: Government Printing Office, 1892.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Eiffel Tower

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Eiffel Tower.

• Official website of the Eiffel Tower (French)
• Official website of the Eiffel Tower (English)
• 360° Panoramic view – Under the Eiffel Tower
• Eiffel Tower at Structurae
• Sketches and plans of the tower's construction
• Reconstructing the Eiffel Tower in CATIA, 3DXML file to download and CG Images
• 3D render of the Eiffel Tower for use in Google Earth
• The first transmitters at Eiffel Tower
• Eiffel Tower: A French Beauty – slideshow by Life magazine
• Evening view of Paris from the Eiffel Tower – 360° panorama
• Gigapixel of the tower, Photography by Guillaume Roumestan

v t e Popular visitor attractions in Paris Arc de Triomphe Catacombs of Paris Cathedral of Notre Dame Centre Georges Pompidou Champs-Élysées Château de Vincennes Conciergerie Eiffel Tower Grand Palais Jardin du Luxembourg Les Invalides Louvre Musée d'Orsay Panthéon Opéra Garnier Père Lachaise Cemetery Sacré-Cœur Sainte-Chapelle

Franz Reichelt wearing his parachute suit

Franz Reichelt, also known as Frantz Reichelt^[1] or François Reichelt (1879 – February 4, 1912), was an Austrian-born French tailor, inventor and parachuting pioneer, now sometimes referred to as the Flying Tailor, who is remembered for his accidental death by jumping from the Eiffel Tower while testing a wearable parachute of his own design. Reichelt had become fixated on developing a suit for aviators that would convert into a parachute and allow them to survive a fall should they be forced to leave their aircraft. Initial experiments conducted with dummies dropped from the fifth floor of his apartment building had been successful, but he was unable to replicate those early successes with any of his subsequent designs.

Believing that the lack of a suitably high test platform was partially to blame for his failures, Reichelt repeatedly petitioned the Parisian Prefecture of Police for permission to conduct a test from the Eiffel Tower. He was finally granted permission in early 1912, but when he arrived at the tower on February 4 he made it clear that he intended to jump himself rather than conduct an experiment with dummies. Despite attempts by his friends and spectators to dissuade him, he jumped from the first platform of the tower wearing his invention. The parachute failed to deploy and he crashed into the icy ground at the foot of the tower. Although it was clear that the fall had killed him, he was taken to a nearby hospital where he was officially pronounced dead. The next day, newspapers were full of the story of the reckless inventor and his fatal jump – many included pictures of the fall taken by press photographers who had gathered to witness Reichelt's experiment – and a film documenting the jump appeared in newsreels.

Early experiments[link]

Reichelt was born in Vienna in 1879 and moved to Paris in 1898.^[2] He obtained French nationality in 1909, adopting the first name François (the French equivalent of the Germanic "Franz"). One of his sisters may have also come to France and been married to a jeweller there,^[1][3] but newspaper reports differed on the details of his family life, with most reporting that his sisters stayed in Vienna. Reichelt himself was unmarried. He took an apartment on the third floor at 8 rue Gaillon near the Avenue de Opera from 1907 (which he rented for 1500 francs a year)^[3] and opened what was to become a successful dressmaking business,^[4] catering mostly to Austrians on trips to Paris.^[5] From July 1910, he began to develop a "parachute-suit":^[2] a suit that was not much more bulky than one normally worn by an aviator, but with the addition of a few rods, a silk canopy and a small amount of rubber that allowed it to fold out to become what Reichelt hoped would be a practical and efficient parachute.

Illustration of the first parachute jump by Louis-Sébastien Lenormand from the tower of the Montpellier observatory in 1783.

The dawn of the aviation age brought inevitable accidents coupled with a growing interest in safety measures, most notably in the development of an effective parachute. Early parachuting successes, such as those by Louis-Sébastien Lenormand in 1783 and by balloonist Jean-Pierre Blanchard, had used fixed-canopy parachutes (that were already "open" before the jump began), and although André-Jacques Garnerin had invented a frameless parachute suitable for use from high altitudes, by 1910 a parachuting solution that was suitable for use when jumping from a plane or at low altitude had yet to be developed. Reichelt seems to have become interested in parachute design after hearing some of the stories of fatal accidents among the early aeronauts and aviators. His early tests with dummies equipped with foldable silk "wings" were a resounding success: dropped from the fifth floor, they touched down lightly.^[3] Attempts to convert the initial prototype parachutes into a workable suit proved difficult. Reichelt's original design weighed around 70 kilograms (150 lb) and used 6 square metres (65 sq ft) of material.^[1] He presented his design to the leading aeronautic organization, La Ligue Aérienne at the Aéro-Club de France, hoping that they would test it, but they rejected his designs on the grounds that the construction of the canopy was too weak, and they attempted to dissuade him from wasting his time on further development.^[6] Undaunted by the rejection, Reichelt persevered and conducted experimental drops with dummies from the courtyard of his building at rue Gaillon. None of his tests proved successful.

In 1911, Colonel Lalance wrote to the Aéro-Club de France, offering a prize of 10,000 francs for a safety parachute for aviators – double the prize he had offered the year before.^{[7][note 1]} The competition was open for three years and stipulated that the parachute must weigh no more than 25 kilograms (55 lb).^[7] Eager to participate, Reichelt refined his design, reducing the weight while increasing the surface area of the material until it reached 12 square metres (130 sq ft).^[1] Further tests proved no more successful than his earlier attempts: his dummies invariably fell heavily to earth. L'Ouest-Éclair reported that in 1911 he had then made a jump himself from a height of 8 to 10 metres (26 to 33 ft) at Joinville. The attempt failed but his fall was cushioned by a pile of straw, which helped him escape injury.^[9] Le Matin reported an attempt at Nogent from a height of 8 metres (26 ft) that resulted in a broken leg.^[6] Le Petit Journal suggested that he also made at least two apparently inconclusive tests with dummies from the first deck of the Eiffel Tower during 1911,^[3] but an interview with one of Reichelt's friends in La Presse made it clear that he had been unsuccessfully applying for permission to conduct a test from the Eiffel Tower for over a year before he finally received the authorization for the final jump.^[4] There had been other tests from the tower during 1910 and 1911 though; Gaston Hervieu, who employed a dummy aircraft and mannequins in his experiments, was attempting to perfect a parachute design to ensure the safe landing of a pilot with all or part of a damaged aircraft.^[10] Reichelt attributed the failures of his designs at least in part to the short drop distances over which he had conducted his tests, so he was keen to receive permission to experiment from the Eiffel Tower.^[5]

Eiffel Tower jump[link]

Reichelt's preparations and fall were captured on film by cinematographers who had turned up to record his experiment. The film also included scenes of the body being removed and the measurement of the hollow created by Reichelt's impact.

Reichelt announced to the press in early February 1912 that he had finally received permission and would shortly conduct an experiment from the Eiffel Tower to prove the value of his invention.

On Sunday, February 4, at 7:00 a.m., he arrived at the tower by car with two friends. He was already wearing his parachute suit.^[4] The news footage of his jump shows him modelling his invention in its folded form, which Le Gaulois described as "... only a little more voluminous than ordinary clothing ..." ("... un peu plus volumineuse qu’un vêtement ordinaire ...").^[5] The suit did not restrict the wearer's movements when the parachute was packed, and Le Petit Parisien described the method of deploying the parachute as being as simple as extending the arms out to form a cross with the body.^[1] Once extended, the outfit resembled "a sort of cloak fitted with a vast hood of silk" ("une sorte de manteau, muni d'un très vaste capuchon de soie") according to Le Temps.^[11] L'Action Française reported that Reichelt stated the surface area of the final design to be 30 square metres (320 sq ft) with a canopy height of 5 metres (16 ft),^[12] while Le Figaro judged the surface area might have reached 32 square metres (340 sq ft). La Croix claimed that the suit may have weighed as little as 9 kilograms (20 lb).^[13] The weather was cold, with temperatures below 0 °C (32 °F),^{[note 2]} and there was a stiff breeze blowing across the Champ de Mars.^[3]

There were some police officers present to maintain order, as the Parisian Prefecture of Police had given Reichelt permission to proceed. After Reichelt's death, M. Louis Lépine who, as the Prefect of Police (Préfet de Police), was ultimately responsible for the permission being granted, issued a statement making it clear that while the police routinely gave permission for experiments to be performed from the Eiffel Tower, it was understood in these cases that dummies would be used. They had given permission in Reichelt's case only on the basis that he would be conducting dummy drops, and that under no circumstances would they have allowed him to proceed if they had known he would be making the jump himself.^[11] M. Lépine assured La Croix that he had never signed an order that allowed a live jump.^[13] From his arrival at the tower, however, Reichelt made it clear that he intended to jump himself. According to a later interview with one of the friends who accompanied him up the tower, this was a surprise to everybody, as Reichelt had concealed his intention until the last moment.^[11] His friends tried to persuade him to use dummies in the experiment, assuring him that he would have other opportunities to make the jump himself. When this failed to make an impression on him, they pointed to the strength of the wind and said he should call off the test on safety grounds, or at least delay until the wind dropped. They were unable to shake his resolve;^[4] seemingly undeterred by the failure of his previous tests, he told journalists from Le Petit Journal that he was totally convinced that his apparatus would work, and work well. When questioned as to whether he planned to take any additional precautions, such as using a safety rope, he replied that he would not, since he intended to trust his life entirely to his parachute:

I want to try the experiment myself and without trickery, as I intend to prove the worth of my invention. (Je veux tenter l’expérience moi-même et sans chiqué [sic], car je tiens à bien prouver la valeur de mon invention.)^[3]

M. Hervieu, who was present to witness the demonstration, also attempted to dissuade him from making the jump. He was concerned that the parachute needed longer to fully open than the few seconds the drop from the first platform would allow, and he also presented other technical objections to which Reichelt could not provide a satisfactory response.^[14] Reichelt finally replied that:

You are going to see how my seventy-two kilos and my parachute will give your arguments the most decisive of denials. (Vous allez voir comment mes soixante-douze kilos et mon parachute vont donner à vos arguments le plus décisif des démentis.)^[14]

Reichelt showed off the suit at the foot of the Eiffel Tower shortly before his fatal fall.

The Prefect of Police, Louis Lépine, was forced to make a statement to the press denying that Reichelt had been authorized to make the jump himself.

Ropes had been suspended between the legs of the tower by the police at Reichelt's request to prevent the crowds from spilling onto the landing zone, and he spent some time discussing the arrangements with the marshals and ensuring that there was sufficient space for his landing before going to the stairs to climb to the first platform.^[5][14]

According to Le Petit Parisien, Reichelt's initial attempt to ascend to the first stage of the tower was blocked by a guard, M. Gassion, who had witnessed previous unsuccessful dummy drops and feared that Reichelt's attempt would end in disaster, though Le Figaro reported that he had merely not received a copy of the order and had to wait for telephone confirmation from his superiors. Despite the guard's resistance, by 8:00 a.m. the matter had been resolved: Reichelt, who was visibly shaken by his argument with the guard, was allowed to mount the tower with his two friends and a cinematographer (another was stationed near the foot of the tower to record the jump from below). As he climbed the stairs he paused, turned back to the crowd, raised his hand and wished them a cheery "À bientôt".^[14] His friends continued to try to talk him out of the jump, but Reichelt was quite determined.^[4] At 8:22 a.m., observed by a crowd of about thirty journalists and curious onlookers, he readied himself – facing towards the Seine – on a stool placed on a restaurant table next to the interior guardrail of the tower's first deck, a little more than 57 metres (187 ft) above the ground. After adjusting his apparatus with the assistance of his friends and checking the wind direction by throwing a piece of paper taken from a small book,^[12] he placed one foot on the guardrail, hesitated for about forty seconds, then leapt outwards. According to Le Figaro, he was calm and smiling just before he jumped.^[14] His parachute, which had seemed to be only half-open, folded around him almost immediately and he plummeted for a few seconds before crashing into the frozen soil at the foot of the tower. His canopy appeared to billow out at the last moment, but by that time it was too late for it to deploy fully or to break his fall.

Le Petit Parisien reported that his right leg and arm were crushed, his skull and spine broken, and that he was bleeding from his mouth, nose and ears. Le Figaro noted that his eyes were wide open, dilated with terror. He was already dead by the time the onlookers rushed to his body, but he was taken to the Necker hospital where he was officially pronounced dead, and then on to a police station in the rue Amelie before being returned to his home in rue Gaillon.^{[note 3][2]}

Aftermath[link]

Several newspapers carried pictures of Reichelt's fatal fall on their front pages on February 5. Le Petit Parisien had this montage.

The next day's newspapers were full of the story of Reichelt's "tragic experiment" ("expérience tragique") complete with photographs;^[2] at least four newspapers, Le Petit Parisien, L'Humanité, Le Matin and La Croix,^{[note 4]} showed images of the fatal jump. Film of the attempt, including footage of Reichelt's body being removed and the onlookers measuring the depth of the hole created by his impact (15 centimetres; 5.9 in^[3]), was distributed by news organizations. Initial reports speculated on Reichelt's state of mind: none assumed he had been suicidal, but many called him reckless or foolish. A journalist in Le Gaulois suggested that only half the term "mad genius" applied to Reichelt – although the same report included an interview with one of Reichelt's friends, who claimed that the tailor had felt pressured into giving a dramatic demonstration to attract sponsors, without whom he could not expect to make a profit before any patent expired.^[2][5] Reichelt's death was the first to result from a parachuting accident since Charles Leroux died giving a demonstration in Tallinn in 1889.^[15] In fact, on February 2, 1912 – two days prior to Reichelt's fatal jump – an American steeplejack, Frederick R. Law, had successfully parachuted from the viewing platform of the torch of the Statue of Liberty (223 feet (68 m) above sea level and 151 feet (46 m) from the base of the statue), seemingly on a whim.^[16] On February 6, La Croix added a footnote to the report on Reichelt's death: another parachuting experiment was to take place on February 18 or 25 at Juvisy-sur-Orge, in which the aviator Camille Guillaume planned to leap from his Blériot monoplane at a height of 300 metres (980 ft) to test a parachute design (the plane would be allowed to crash).^[13]

After Reichelt's death, the authorities were wary of granting permission for experiments from the Eiffel Tower.^[17] Though they continued to grant permissions for parachute dummy drops,^[18][19] some hopeful inventors – such as M. Damblanc, who wished to try his "helicopter parachute" from the second platform – were refused permission to conduct tests,^[17] and even applications for aviation experiments not involving the tower came under renewed scrutiny. More recently, the tower has been the scene of a number of illicit base jumps (a Norwegian man died in 2005 after losing his canopy while attempting a promotional jump for a clothing firm – the first parachuting death at the tower since Reichelt), as well as a sanctioned stunt jump for the 1985 James Bond film A View to a Kill.^[20]

Reichelt came momentarily to prominence again in the 1940s in the United States, when his likeness was claimed as the model for one of the figures that were "strangely un-American in expression and garb" in the WPA-funded mural at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn.^[21] In an incident reminiscent of the 1933 controversy over Diego Rivera's Man at the Crossroads mural at the Rockefeller Center in New York City, a furore erupted over an image depicting two minor leftist aviators, supposedly flanking a central portrait of Joseph Stalin. The WPA already had an unwanted reputation as sympathetic to the left, and despite the artist August Henkel's "glib" explanation of the "accidental" inclusion of a Soviet red star and his claim that the image identified as Stalin was actually of Reichelt, the murals were taken down and three of the four panels burned.^[22] The story of Reichelt's misadventure was also the subject of a 1993 French short, Le Tailleur Autrichien, written and directed by Pablo Lopez Paredes and starring Bruce Myers in the title role.

Although there were no viable parachuting solutions for use in aeroplanes when Reichelt began developing his suit, by the time of his death a successful parachute jump from a plane using a non-fixed canopy had already taken place in the United States, and a patent for a packable parachute had been applied for by Gleb Kotelnikov.^{[note 5]} As a parachuting pioneer, Reichelt is largely forgotten; his legacy has taken the form of a cautionary tale: while he may appear as a footnote in parachuting histories, he is a mainstay of books and websites that cite pointless or stupid deaths.

See also[link]

• List of unusual deaths

Notes[link]

References[link]

Other references

• "La mort de l'inventeur" (in French). L'Humanité: p. 1. February 5, 1912. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k253012h.zoom.f1.langFR. Retrieved December 8, 2009. 
• Gordon, Alastair (2004). Naked Airport: A Cultural History of the World's Most Revolutionary Structure. Metropolitan Books. pp. 320. ISBN 0-8050-6518-0. 

External links[link]

• British Pathé film of Reichelt's final jump