Eifel Tower

May-Ann O. Salgado

BSIT-703

Introduction to Arts

Eiffel Tower Architecture

Famous Structure in Paris, France, Europe

The Eiffel Tower was built for the World Exhibition in 1889, held in celebration of the French Revolution in 1789. 

Design: Serero Architects

Decription: The Eiffel Tower weighs 7,000 tons. There are three levels. The base is 412 square feet or 2.5 acres. The Eiffel Tower is about 1,052 feet high including the television antenna at the top. There are 2,500,000 rivets and 18,038 steel pieces that make up the Eiffel Tower.

Location:  The Eiffel Tower is located in the seventh arrondissement, near the Seine, on the left bank (Rive Gauche) of the river. The tower is found at one end of the Champ de Mars (the green area where lovers are frequently photographed with the tower in the distance), and is bordered on the opposite side by the Quai Branly. Across the Seine is the Avenue de New York and the Palais de Chailly.

Eiffel, Alexandre Gustave 1832-1923, French engineer. A noted constructor of bridges and viaducts, he also designed the Eiffel Tower and the internal structure of the Statue of Liberty. He was initially charged with corruption in the 1888 scandal of Ferdinand de Lesseps's failed Panama Canal project.  Lesseps (1805-1894), the successful promoter and construction supervisor for the Suez Canal (1859-69), later assumed presidency of the French company building the Panama Canal starting in 1881.  Eiffel was hired to provide engineering services for the project.  Seven year later the project was forced into bankruptcy amid charges of corruption. Lesseps was sentenced to prison for misappropriation of funds, but the sentence was not carried out.  Eiffel was cleared of all wrongdoing by a French appeals court in 1893. Nonetheless, he withdrew from commercial life and spent the rest of his years studying aerodynamics. The man behind the Eiffel Tower was Gustave Eiffel, known from his revolutionary bridge building techniques, as...