indwe magazine – May 2005

EIFFEL
The Man and The Tower
Text: Rihan Esterhuizen
Image: © Getty Images/Touchline Photo
“The first principle of architectural beauty is that the essential lines of a construction be determined by a perfect appropriateness to its use.” – Gustave Eiffel

April 1888
July 1888
December 1888
May 1889
Gustave Eiffel, the man who designed and built the Eiffel Tower, first became famous for his revolutionary work with wrought iron bridges and structures.As an engineer, Eiffel was largely concerned with the function of the design.By function, Eiffel meant that the structure had to have the ability to carry loads and to be stable. His bridges were extraordinarily strong but light, and became famous for having less wind resistance because of the cross design and lattice of the iron.Most of his bridges were built of wrought iron with some use of masonry as support.Eiffel’s new way of constructing girders helped to avoid the need for scaffolding and revolutionized the construction of bridges.
Gustave Eiffel’s architecture and engineering had a distinctive style, especially since it was so innovative during the nineteenth century.The eighteenth century in Europe was transformed by the French Revolution and by the Industrial Revolution.Eiffel’s architecture in large part reflects France’s desire to show the world that it was still a great and powerful nation.The glory that France had seen in the eighteenth century had been worn by the revolution.Thus, much of the new building projects were intended to display French innovation and technology.
Gustave Eiffel was also one of the brilliant minds behind the Statue of Liberty, along with Auguste Bartholdi and Richard M. Hunt. ‘Lady Liberty’ was started in 1885, and upon completion was given to the United States as a sign of international friendship from the country of France. Eiffel not only built the interior structure and calculated how to distribute the weight, but he also supervised the raising of the structure once it got safely to the United States.
Monsieur Gustave Alexandre Eiffel was born in Dijon, France on December 15, 1832 to a familyof coal merchants known for fine craftwork with wood. After leaving school, Eiffel first studied chemistry at the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in the hopes of continuing the business of a vinegar distillery owned by his uncle.After graduating in 1832 however, he got a job at Nepveu & Cie., an architectural firm in Paris, and at the age of 25 he supervised the building of the Garonne Bridge in Bordeaux – a massive project that launched his architectural and engineering career.
In 1866 he founded his own engineering company, Eiffel Inc. and designed many bridges for countries such as France, Spain, Austria, Egypt and Peru. All of these structures are still in use today, and many of them have been declared National Monuments.
In 1884, the city of Paris began planning for the World’s Fair and requested proposals for a new building that would commemorate the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution and impress visitors to France.Eiffel’s proposal to build the revolutionary tower was eventually selected from more than 700 other proposals. The Eiffel Tower was thus built with the single purpose of celebrating the Centennial of the French Revolution at the 1889 International Trade Fair.
His new tower would be the tallest steel structure in the world, reaching 300 meters in height. In designing the Eiffel Tower, Eiffel realised that the greatest obstacle he had to overcome was the wind, and to find solutions to making the tower less wind resistant.For this he relied on his precise calculations of the dimensions and shape of the tower.His ability to calculate and compensate for the wind and other pressures was carried over from the many other structures and bridges he had designed.Eiffel viewed the use of iron, strong and sturdy and light, as not only a new building material, but also a new art form.
He began the construction on July 1, 1887, and it was finished 2 years and 2 months later in time for the World’s Fair. It was met with a mostly positive attitude, although some people did not care for the new style of architecture. It was impressive because of its innovative design, using cross-braced and latticed girders. Eiffel’s tower originally had no purpose; it was intended to represent the capabilities of modern engineering. However, besides being a symbol of romance andintellectual engineering, today it is also used for radio transmitting, a place to study weather and aerodynamics, and a tourist site. Eiffel was so amazed by his masterpiece that he lived in an apartment on the second floor of the tower. The Eiffel Tower stands today as the most famous French monument and some believe that Eiffel’s innovative design prepared the world for modern skyscrapers and high rises. The Eiffel Tower, in many ways represents a new worldview in France and symbolizes anew lightness in a period that had been dark.Regardless of the controversy while building was in progress, and the large amount of negative feedback, the Eiffel Tower still stands proud and has become the most popular tourist attraction in the world.
After completing the Eiffel Tower, Gustave Eiffel was involved in the early designing stages of the Panama Canal, although the contract would prove to be the most devastating project of his engineering career.Eiffel was hired to provide engineering services for the project.
He signed the contract to design the locks for the Panama Canal, but unfortunately, due to mismanagement of the project by Ferdinand de Lesseps, the project was forced into bankruptcy amid charges of corruption. Eiffel and De Lesseps were indicted for fraud and sentenced to two years in prison and fined for misappropriation of funds, but the sentence was not carried out. Eiffel was cleared of all wrongdoing by a French appeals court in 1893, but the affair ruined Eiffel’s career as an engineer and architect.
After the fiasco with the Panama Canal, Eiffel developed a passionate interest in that which, at the turn of the century, was considered avant-garde science. He began studying uses for the Eiffel Tower, which he feared would be torn down because it was only meant to stand for twenty years.During this time he developed several scientific experiments, including Foucault’s giant pendulum, a mercury barometer, and the first experiment of radio transmission. He added a military telegraph to the tower, and in 1898, Eugene Ducretet at the Pantheon, received signals from the tower. In 1889, Eiffel began to fit the peak of the tower as an observation station to measure the speed of wind.
After Eiffel had experimented in the field of meteorology, he took an interest in the effects of wind and air resistance, the science that would later be termed aerodynamics, which has become a large part of both military and commercial aviation as well as rocket technology. The limited capacity of the available measuring instruments led Eiffel to develop a more sophisticated knowledge of aviation and eventually, to wind tunnel experiments. He built a wind tunnel on the Champ de Mars, which was in use from 1909-1911. The tunnel was sufficient for laboratory experiments but inadequate for the study of airplanes. However, with the help of several other engineers, Eiffel conducted more than 5,000 tests in this lab, and almost all the pioneers of aviation used his wind tunnel for testing.
In 1911, Eiffel designed a larger and more sophisticated wind tunnel, which was built between 1912 to 1914. In his new wind tunnel, which is still in use today, Eiffel began experiments with military equipment for WWI fighter planes. This led to Eiffel’s design and construction of a very advanced monoplane chaser in 1917.
Gustav Eiffel was a contemporary of Samuel Langeley, the president of the Smithsonian Institute, after whom NASA’s Langeley Research Center was named, and much of Eiffel’s work had gone on to help expand the science of aerodynamics, with NASA using many propeller and wind tunnel experiments in their trainer planes for astronauts.
Eiffel was married to Marie Gaudelet, and they had five children, but after the death of his wife in 1877, after only fifteen years of marriage, Eiffel remained single until his death at age 91 on December 27, 1923.
Today the Eiffel Tower stands proud as a symbol of a brilliant mind, a master engineer and an innovative architect.
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