Eiffel Tower As An Iconic Monument In The History Of France

The topic is “Eiffel Tower”. It was constructed as an entrance for the city of Paris, France as they are hosting a universal exposition on the occasion of their 100 years celebrations of French revolution. This project is said be successful because initially they planned it as a temporary one but later on it became more useful as radio antenna communication and military purposes so they want it to be as it is without demolishing. So that’s how a temporary construction turned out to be a historical icon symbol for France.

Introduction

After finishing hundred years of the French revolution, French government planned to celebrate their victory in the year 1889. They planned to host a universal exposition to celebrate their most important day. The government arranged a competition in June 1884 in which more than hundred people participated and submitted their design for a memorable construction. Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, a civil engineer (who also involved in the intial design of statue of liberty when the actual internal designer viollet passed way in the year 1879) participated in the competition held by French government and provided many architecture designs. Gustave Eiffel explained each and every part of his design clearly and impressed the higher authorities and won the competition. His idea was to built a 324 meters height of tower with wrought iron as an entrance for Expo. But the government puts a condition that is the construction should be only for 20 years and after that it has to be destructed. Eiffel also agreed for it but he always knew that this construction will be very useful for people in future. And that’s how “Eiffel tower” was built on the name of Gustave Eiffel and it is the entrance for people who comes for the exposition.

Initially, Gustave Eiffel planned to build Eiffel tower in Barcelona but the officers in Barcelona did not gave approval for it because this construction has to be destructed after twenty years and they thought that there city would face problems while destruction and also officers in Barcelona said that they can’t afford such a huge amount, place for such type of new construction. And people were jealous and criticised Eiffel because of the kind of construction design was unbelievable in those days. After few years he got approval from Paris, but it has to be built nearby river so that it would be easier while destruction. Finally Gustave Eiffel started his construction at Champ de Mars nearby a river called seine on January 28th 1887.

Construction details:

Gustave Eiffel started his construction in the year 1887 in an area of 2.5 acres and finished it by 1889. Initially he started with first level which has four pillars that is in square shape with 125 meters each side and finished it on April 1st 1888. During this period he was insulted by many people by seeing the slow growth of his construction and there were designers, scientists and others who supported him till the end. Immediately, he started the second level of construction and he finished it on August 14th 1888. After that it took a bit more time to complete upper level and he finished it on 31st march 1889 with a height of 324 meters which is as equal to an 81 store building and only the top level is of around 276 meters. If we look from the top of Eiffel tower we can see about 42.5 miles distance around. They also planned to arrange 8 elevators to move from bottom level to upper level. For the construction of the Eiffel tower they have spent $1.5 million. Source: figure [1] retrieved from < http://irannewsdaily.com/eiffel-tower/ >

The overall composition he used was around 18,000 metal components and 2,500,000 rivets. And the overall weight of the Eiffel tower was around 10,000 tons and the metals itself weighs 7,300 tons. There are two hotels and one printing press in Eiffel tower and Eiffel also had an apartment in it. Gustave Eiffel engraved 72 names of scientists, mathematicians, engineers on Eiffel tower who contributed their work in this epic construction and they are the one who believed in him during the process of construction. Several people worked for day and night to finish this monument within two years. He painted tower in such a way that as the height increases the thickness of the painting also increases this is to make the tower look like same from every view.

The tower has to be painted for every seven years and it requires around 60 -70 tons of paint. Generally, it takes around 18 months to paint once. Till now it was painted around 19 times and from the year 2001 they stopped painting lead to protect our environment. In the year 1902, the top level layer ie:100 meters got disturbed due to bad weather and it was recovered with 20,000 bulbs immediately which made tower look more beautiful than before. In 2013 the government decided to turn off the lights from morning till evening and turn on only at nights so that the electricity can be saved. In summer the height of tower increases by 3.25 meters because in summer metals expands due to heat.

During Inauguration:

Gustave Eiffel made people mesmerise by his wonderful architecture. Finally on March 31st 1889 this was inaugurated by Gustav Eiffel with higher authorities. As lifts were not completely finished by that time, Gustave walked all the way to top of the tower (1710 steps) and hoisted their national flag. On the day of inauguration, many guests visited among them Thomas Alva Edison appreciated gustave for his amazing construction and Edison also signed on guestbook with short message. After nine days the public were allowed to visit the tower. Nearly 30,000 people visited top level by walk because the lifts were not yet finished. Later on after lifts are operable then people started visiting in huge numbers. Eiffel tower became the most visited paid monument in the world. Some architects who visited the universal exposition tried to build a replica structure of Eiffel tower in their own cities. Few of them are: Blackpool tower in England (1894) with 158.1 meters height, Tokyo tower in japan (1958) etc… slowly many people started visiting this place after knowing its craze in those days. Till 1930 Eiffel tower was the tallest construction in the world after that Chrysler Building in New York City became tallest building.

Critical Factors For Success:

Scope: Generally scope of the project means the functionality of the project and the major delivarables / outcomes of the project . In case of Eiffel tower the major purpose of it is as an entrance of world’s fair that is held on the occasion of hundered years completion of French revolution but the delivarables or scope of the project is to also increase in the tourism and later on it is also useful for telecommunication purposes too.

Cost: It plays a major role in the project and it is one of the key criteria that is always considered by everyone to tell whether the project is successful or not because initially for every project we plan some budget to proceed it and if we finish it within the budget then it is considered to be a successful project. Sometimes projects may lead to over budget then such works are said to be a bit failed in their planning. Initially Eiffel tower was also planned with some budget that is around $1.5 million and gustave finished the construction of the tower within the budget.

Deliver on Time: A real-time project must and should always be temporal but not permanent. Any project has some target date/duration to be finished off. If the project is finished by the deadline they put initially then it is considered as a success. Eiffel tower was planned and finished it in two years two months and five days. They faced many struggles but still many people worked very hard to make it possible. Even today it is providing employment opportunities for more than 500 people to operate Eiffel tower.

Success Reasons Of Eiffel Tower:

• One of the most important reasons that has to be considered to tell Eiffel tower as an historical successful project is because it is just finished with in two years and two months with the budget of $1.5 million and maintaining the record for four decades as world tallest construction and also named as the most visited tourist spot.
• Gustave also made meteorology laboratory in third floor and in year 1898 he made scientists, mathematicians and engineers to do research in his laboratory on each and every aspect from gravity to till electricity because Eiffel strongly believed that this tower has to be forever so that it will be very helpful for people in future. And he wants people to know how important the tower is. After a lots of research scientists and scholars came to a conclusion that this tower is very much useful for communication purpose. So they fixed nearly 120 antennas at the top of the tower. These antennas is used for broadcasting radio and television signals. Slowly this Tower became more useful for people in the city for the radio communications. This is also one of the reasons for its success.
• This tower became helpful for French military as wireless telegraph transmitter which made them to communicate with others who are at long distances and also can be able to identify the opponents from top level of Eiffel tower. During world war-1 thistower played a major role for communication and this radio frequencies are also used for interrupting enemies communication. So Hitlerwants to demolish this tower during world war but French fighter disconnected the cable wires of lifts so the soldiers can’t go to the upper part. This happened while German tried to occupy Paris. As days were passing on government also came to know that this tower will be so useful in future.
• Many people started visiting Paristo witness this tower and the statistics says that on an average everyday twenty five thousand people comes to ascend Eiffel tower Nearly 7 million people visit Eiffel tower every year and since 1889 more than 250 million people visited this place and it stands top as most visited paid monument in the world. This tower turned from a temporary construction to French iconic symbol.

Conclusion:

As per the French government condition, Eiffel tower has to be destructed after twenty years so it has to be dismantled in the year 1909. But people don’t want to destroy it because it’s so beautiful and government also put an eye on tourism statistics and after recognising its value they decided that it should not be demolished as it is very much useful for radio communications and military purpose. Thus Eiffel tower remained as an iconic monument in the history of France.