Archinect - News

The Eiffel Tower is getting a new 60 million euro paint job in lieu of some much-needed repairs

2022-07-12T12:01:00-04:00

According to CNN, the unnamed need for maintenance was first uncovered in confidential reports obtained by the French periodical Marianne. Rust damage to the structure has accumulated over the years, a product of the lead contained within the paint which was originally meant to protect its steel from oxidizing but is now slowly making its condition worse in the opinion of at least one structural engineer with knowledge of the situation.

As Marianne noted, this represents the 20th time the tower, which Gustave Eiffel originally conceived of as a 20-year temporary installation, has been repainted since its debut as the centerpiece of the 1889 Exposition Universelle. The latest round will reportedly cover a mere 5% of the entire 1,063-foot structure. An unnamed expert told the magazine: "At best, it will be mostly useless, but at the very worst, it will make the defects in the existing layer of paint worse and result in corrosion."

Related on Archinect: Paris mayor announces €300M Eif...

The Eiffel Tower has grown a bit taller for the second time this century

2022-03-16T13:52:00-04:00

The Eiffel Tower grew by six meters (nearly 20 feet) on Tuesday after engineers hoisted a new communications antenna at the very top of France’s most iconic landmark. With the new antenna, the Eiffel Tower grew from 324 meters (1,063 feet) tall to 330 meters (1,083 feet).

The Iron Lady’s first such extension was installed in 1957 and followed in 2000 by the installation of a UHF display, which brought the official height to the just-surmounted total of 324 meters (1,063 feet). Tuesday’s addition of the new DAB+ antenna now brings the structure even further away from its original height of 312 meters (1,023 feet) at construction.

A helicopter was used to transport the antenna to the technicians in charge of installing it at a height of 324m A rare and spectacular technical feat! #tourEiffel330M @TDFgroupe pic.twitter.com/9qytcpAeiT
— La tour Eiffel (@LaTourEiffel) March 15, 2022

Owing to its height, Gustave Eiffel’s iconic structure has long served Paris and the Île-de-France region as a transmitting beacon beginning with its first broadcast in 1898. The radio itself is said to have in part saved the tower from its original 20-year hard cap, gaining a 70-year extension in 1910 thanks to its inventor's self-financed adaptation of then-new TSF technol...

Lost original drawings for Statue of Liberty discovered by map dealer

2020-05-28T11:48:00-04:00

According to Smithsonian Magazine, a recently discovered set of Gustave Eiffel’s original schematic drawings for Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s statue have been found and show the development of his innovative design. California map dealer Barry Lawrence Ruderman purchased a folder of material from Gustave Eiffel's workshop at an auction in 2018 only to find that 22 original engineering drawings of the Stature of Liberty were hidden in the contents. The drawings can be seen on raremaps.com.

As we celebrate its 130th birthday, we look at the copycats inspired by the Eiffel Tower

2019-03-21T15:35:00-04:00

"Beyond its strictly Parisian statement, it touches the most general human image-repertoire: its simple, primary shape confers upon it the vocation of an infinite cipher ... [Gustave] Eiffel saw his Tower in the form of a serious object, rational, useful; men return it to him in the form of a great baroque dream which quite naturally touches on the borders of the irrational."

- Roland Barthes, “The Eiffel Tower,” 1964

Who would have guessed that the Eiffel Tower, a widely despised structure at the time of its completion exactly 130 years ago, would not only become an icon, but the icon of icons? Did its image become so pervasive in the modern era because it is not a sacred monument, as Roland Barthes had observed, but rather a secular one? Is it because it signaled the escalation of the Industrial Revolution, both in its simplicity and its ingenuity of structural form?

Whatever the reason, the iconic structure has inspired over 30 imitators spread across the globe of varying scales ...

Paris mayor announces €300M Eiffel Tower renovation

2017-01-16T13:05:00-05:00

The Eiffel Tower is to undergo a €300m, 15-year refurbishment, Paris’s mayor Anne Hidalgo announced on Friday. [...] The planned refurbishment is intended to bolster the French capital’s bids to host another World’s Fair in 2025 and, before that, the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic games [...]. The project will be managed by the tower’s operator, the Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel, a public service company wholly owned by the City Council.

The 15-year refurbishment of this most-visited monument anywhere in the world (the 127-year-old wrought iron structure has been operating at its maximum capacity of about 7 million visitors since 2003, according to Wikipedia) will take more than a few buckets of paint and also comprises the modernization of the elevators, viewing gallery, security and access facilities, as well as the light show systems.

130 years ago today, the Statue of Liberty first arrived in New York

2015-06-17T13:29:00-04:00

According to legend, the Statue of Liberty came to sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi as a vision: sailing into New York Harbor in 1870, the French artist suddenly imaged the persona of liberty welcoming him. He sketched out his idea and immediately began pitching it... It was 130 years ago today, on June 17, 1885, that the ship and its precious cargo reached New York—and another year before reassembly was complete and the finished product could be unveiled.