While hard to imagine today, Paris’s most iconic monument was largely reviled when it was first built for the 1889 World’s Fair. On February 14, 1887, as construction was just beginning, a group of some of most notable Parisian artists, writers, architects and intellectuals – including Charles Garnier, Émile Zola, Alexandre Dumas fils, and Guy de Maupassant – launched a petition against the Eiffel Tower. "We, the writers, painters, sculptors, architects and lovers of the beauty of Paris, do protest with all our vigour and all our indignation, in the name of French taste and endangered French art and history, against the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower,” their statement read.
Today, concerns over the use-value of the most-visited paid monument in the world seem comical. But throughout its history, the question of utility has been central to conversations about the Eiffel Tower. Gustave Eiffel, the engineer who designed the 906 ft. tall structure, defensively touted it’s scientific value as a laboratory for meteorology, astronomy and physics. In addition to offering some of the best views in Paris and dishing out expensive food from its restaurants, the tower has historically served as a radio and later television transmitter, a billboard, a skating rink, and a bungee jumping platform.
On the other side, there are those like the French sociologist Roland Barthes who find the ‘uselessness’ of the monument an aspect of its greatness. He wrote, “[The Eiffel Tower’s] uses are doubtless incontestable, but they seem quite ridiculous alongside the overwhelming myth of the Tower, of the human meaning which it has assumed throughout the world. This is because here the utilitarian excuses, however ennobled they may be by the myth of Science, are nothing in comparison to the great imaginary function which enables men to be strictly human.”
Now, the Eiffel Tower will serve a new function: US-based Urban Green Energy announced yesterday that it has installed two wind turbines in the structure. The vertical axis turbines will be capable of delivering 10,000kWh, equivalent to the energy consumed by the commercial areas of the tower’s base. Sited 400 feet in the air to take advantage of the most steady winds, the turbines have been painted to match the rest of the monument.
Part of a larger ecological retrofitting, the Eiffel tower has also been equipped with LED lights, a solar array to provide hot water to adjacent pavilions, and a rainwater recovery system. The €30 million renovations, which also include cosmetic and safety upgrades, are funded by the Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel. You can read more about the project here.
7 Comments
nice article, cool photos :)
Nice. Wonder how our Archinect Traditionalists feel about this?
^ Happy that it isn't being razed to make room for some starchitect's wet dream.
Eiffel is one of my heroes.
Eiffel would be stoked about this, as his goal was technological innovation with innovative materials...
Good heavens that's a scary job that guy has - imagine if the turbine started to spin while he's sitting on it!
Very cool idea.
Vibrations anyone?
Nikola Tesla would be proud.
I'm sure the pigeons aren't all too happy about this...
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