Saturday, March 15, 2008

How much do you know about the Eiffel Tower?

I guess the Eiffel Tower is the most recognized landmark in Paris. I thought you might enjoy seeing this webcam view of the Eiffel Tower from morning to night. It's from YouTube of course.
How much do you really know about the Eiffel Tower?
"...the tower was the greatest affront not only to the architecture of Paris, but also to the eye of the Parisian, for whom its structural logic and revolutionary aesthetic language were incomprehensible.

"Essentially, the structure of the Eiffel Tower—which was a far-ranging extrapolation of Eiffel's spidery, wrought-iron bridge pylons—could not have been more simple: four immense, tapering, curved, lattice-girder piers that meet asymptotically. These piers rise from an immensely broad square base—125 meters on a side—and are laced together at two levels by connecting girders to form an integral unity of great stability..."

— Marvin Trachtenberg and Isabelle Hyman. Architecture: from Prehistory to Post-Modernism. p485.

Details

Built for the 1889 International Exhibition, Paris, the centenary celebration of the French Revolution. On the Av. Gustave Eiffel, by the river Seine.

300 m (985 ft) tall.
source: www.greatbuildings.com

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