The Paris Journals
I found them.
Stuffed in a box of faded memories.
Tucked in among old notebooks and postcards.
Snapshots.
And a first flower from a first beau.
And I wanted to crawl through
the oversized innocence,
the freeflowing wonderment
drowning on the pages.
I wanted to go back --
my first time in Paris.
The freedom of that final year.
Go back.
Back before the lines came into focus.
And the holding hands under the Eiffel Tower.
When the only fear in my head
was how high it and he could take me.
--Stanley Chen Xi
La Tour Eiffel (la dame de fer, the Iron Lady) is a wrought iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. After discussing a suitable centerpiece for the 1889 Exposition Universelle, a world's fair to celebrate the centennial of the French Revolution, in 1884 the "Compagnie des établissements Eiffel" assigned the design to Maurice Koechlin, who had designed the internal frame for the Statue of Liberty for Gustave Eiffel’s company, sketched "a great pylon, consisting of four lattice girders standing apart at the base and coming together at the top, joined together by metal trusses at regular intervals." The tower was inspired by the wooden Latting Observatory, the highest structure in new York from the time of its construction in 1853 until it burned down in 1856. After the initial design, Koechlin worked in conjunction with Émile Nouguier, with whom he had just worked for Eiffel in the creation of the Viaduc de Garabi, the highest viaduct in the world at the time, but they failed to get Eiffel’s go-ahead, though he approved further study. The two engineers consulted Stephen Sauvestre, the head of company's architectural department, who added decorative arches to the base, the glass pavilion to the first level, and the cupola at the top, and also chose the tower’s reddish brown color ( lighter at the top, getting progressively darker towards the bottom to complement the Parisian sky). Eiffel then bought the rights to the patent of the design for 1% of the tower’s earnings; they eventually received about 50,000 francs. (When Eiffel retired from the engineering profession in 1893 Koechlin, who had adopted Swiss citizenship after France lost the 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War, became the managing director of Eiffel's company, renamed "Société de construction de Levallois-Perret." In 1893 Nouguier became the president of Nouguier, Kessler et Cie.) The design was exhibited at the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in the autumn of 1884 under the company name. In 1885, Eiffel presented the plans to the Société des Ingénieurs Civils, saying the tower would symbolize “Not only the art of the modern engineer, but also the century of Industry and Science in which we are living, and for which the way was prepared by the great scientific movement of the eighteenth century and by the Revolution of 1789, to which this monument will be built as an expression of France's gratitude.”
ReplyDeleteThe new trade minister Édouard Lockroy appointed a selection committee, which chose the Eiffel design in June 1886. In January, Eiffel, acting in his own capacity rather than as the representative of his company, signed a contract which granted him 1.5 million francs toward the construction costs, less than 1/4 of the estimate, and gave him all income from the tower’s commercial exploitation for 20 years. Eiffel created a separate company to manage the tower, putting up 1/2 the necessary capital himself. Using 7,500 tons of iron and 2.5 million rivets, the tower was built in 2 years, 2 months, and 5 days. The elevators were not finished on opening day, but workers were on the job through the night the day before to complete the construction needed to let visitors enter. A secret military bunker that may have connected to the nearby Ecole Militaire via a long tunnel was installed below the south pillar. At the top a private apartment was installed for Eiffel himself, where he hosted famous guests. The names of 72 French scientists, mathematicians, and engineers were engraved in the structure, and a meteorology lab was installed on the 3rd floor where Eiffel and other scientists performed studies in physics and aerodynamics, and he also built a wind tunnel. In 1909 Theodor Wulf used his newly invented electrometer (a device to measure the rate of ion production inside a hermetically sealed container) showed that radiation levels were higher at the top of the Eiffel Tower than at its base. (In 1912 Victor Hess carried 3 improved Wulf electrometers in a balloon during a near-total solar eclipse and concluded that “a radiation of very great penetrating power enters our atmosphere from above." In 1936 Hess received the Nobel Prize for his discovery of cosmic rays.) In 1936 Hess received the Nobel prize for his discovery of cosmic rays.) Since its opening over 250 million people have visited the tower; every 7 years it is repainted with 50 tons of paint.
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