When it comes to Paris, we will inevitably think of the Eiffel Tower, as it is one of the most famous buildings in the world, one of the cultural symbols of France, one of the city landmarks of Paris and the tallest building in Paris.

Eiffel Tower

Romantic Paris also gives the Eiffel Tower a romantic tone. There is such a love story behind it. Gustave Eiffel, the architect of the Eiffel Tower, in his later years climbed up to the top of the tower, a place closet to the heaven, and said loudly to his dead wife Margaret, “I love you!” So many years passed, the expression of love is still echoing above the top of the tower, and the Eiffel Tower has hence become a symbol of devoted love.

You can go to “Paris, La Ville Spectacle” in the Holographic Theater in Permanent Exhibition Hall 1 in the World Expo Museum (WEM) to know more about the Eiffel Tower story.

 “ Paris, La Ville Spectacle” in Holographic Theater

It was not going smooth in building the Eiffel Tower. At the beginning of the construction, many famous people like Dumas Jr. and Maupassant even took skeptical view of her. Then, how did she break through all the resistance and now become the pride of Parisians?

A poster of the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris

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To commemorate the 100th anniversary of French Revolution and encourage the voices of the people, the organizing committee planned to build a tower with a height of 300 meters and a bottom side length of 125 meters on a square on Champ de Mars, so the design contest was a propositional composition within a given framework. The proposals submitted for the contest included a skyscraping lighthouse that could light up the entire Paris, an overhead sprinkler head flowing out water, and a huge guillotine showing the power of the great French Revolution. The design submitted by Eiffel along with engineers Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier was selected out of 107 proposals in 1886.

Lots of doubts

Eiffel Tower under construction

The Eiffel Tower was started to build on January 26, 1887 and completed on March 31, 1889. Made of 7,200 tons of cast iron, it weighs 10,100 tons. 18,038 components and parts are fastened together with 2.5 million rivets by making use of the contracted force after cooling, accurate to millimeter.Because the northern and eastern piers of the Tower are inside the ancient Seine River branch, with the 15-meter foundation below the ground water level, experienced Eiffel adopted “Caisson Method” to compress air out of mud.

When the platform on the first floor was completed, more than 10 steam engines and cranes on the ground were also upgraded to “upstairs”. A senior mathematician told the media with certainty that the tower would be crushed by its own weight when it overlapped to 221 meters tall, and some people even asserted that the tower would be blown down by strong wind.

Gustave Eiffel

Eiffel told the public that strength-weight ratio of iron was much greater than stone and timber. The “Exposed” structure of the tower was decided after rigid calculation of no-linear functions and differential equations, with enough safety reserved. The arch at the bottom of the tower is not load-bearing, only decorative. The tower spire will swing slightly in strong wind with a range about 6 to 7 centimeters. In hot summer, the temperature difference between bright and dark faces of the tower brings about different expansion, which will make the spire like an inverse “sunflower”, and generate an ellipse with a diameter of 18 centimeters from morning till night.

Although the Eiffel Tower weighs 10,000 tons, it looks slim and even light and exquisite. So Parisians affectionately call her “Iron Lady”, which is not a wrong impression. Calculation shows that if all the iron in the tower is melted and laid around the four feet on the ground, the height will be only 6 centimeters. If a high cylindrical container is placed at the circumcircle of the four feet, the weight of the air in the tower will be more than the weight of the tower itself. Used to be the world’s tallest structure, the A-shaped hollowed out sculpture has become an “iron witness” of the triumph of industrial development and the progress of science and technology.

Archway at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower

Few people mentioned that the Eiffel Tower was rejected to participate in Expo 1888, Barcelona. We could not blame Sprain to be “blind”as the Eiffel Tower was ever petitioned against by some Parisians themselves, such as Dumas Jr., Maupassant, Garnier and Kopper. These prominent Parisian notables who signed a protest statement and said that the Eiffel Tower dominated Paris like a “gigantic black smokestack”and a “big ink dot”that desecrated the French culture and defaced the image of Paris in the most caustic words.

Comics of Mr. Eiffel

Eiffel responded only with the simple words of an engineer, and concentrated to his work. At the completion ceremony on March 31, 1889, Eiffel walked over to the 1,710-step tower, and placed Flag of France volley high up on the “Mast of Paris”. During the expo, totally 2 million visitors boarded high up to the Eiffel Tower.

American inventor Edison left a message on September 11 as such, “To Mr. Eiffel, the engineer, the brave builder of so gigantic and original specimen of modern engineering”.

Completed Eiffel Tower

Become a Landmark of Paris

The Eiffel Tower housed a scientific laboratory at the top

According to the 20-year contract signed between Paris Municipal Government and Mr. Eiffel, that tower should be demolished in 1909. However, Paris could not do without the Eiffel Tower. In addition to commemorative significance, the wireless telegraph center on the tower gave the French navy the world’s most advanced means of communication, making them good in hearing and eyesight during the Battle of the Marne. The Eiffel Tower also captured a large number of German secret information, including the capture of famous spy Mata Hari. After being implicated in Panama Canal lawsuit, Eiffel dropped out of corporate business and began to focus on scientific research, and he established a high-rise laboratory on the tower for aerodynamic and meteorological observation.

Visitors boarding over the Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower began to strike the hour on May 23, 1910, with night signal ranging more than 5,200 kilometers, and worldwide time synchronization having been achieved. By testing the different radiation intensities at the top and the bottom of the tower, Wolff discovered cosmic rays. After that, the Eiffel Tower became the tallest radio and television transmitter.It is by dint of a born beauty and loyal service that the Eiffel Tower got free with her contributions when it was time to demolish, and eventually became a pearl in the palm of French people.

After Germany was defeated in 1944, Hitler ordered General Dietrich von Choltitz,the military governor of Paris, to bomb the Eiffel Tower. Fortunately, this Nazi general was conscientious and disobedient. If he were his predecessor –Waldersee, Commander of the Eight-Power Allied Forces, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum and other cultural treasures would have been impossible to escape from “the havoc of Old Summer Palace”.

Nazi occupied Paris during the World War II