Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower a landmark in the world and without which anyone can not just think of Paris. It remains all time favorite visiting place of the people who step into Paris. It is the tallest structure of Paris till now, and remained until 1930 as the world’s tallest structure, and is the most distinguished construction in world. It’s named after the designer Gustave Eiffel who built this mega structure. In 2006, as many as 6,719,200 people visited the tower, and since the construction of the tower it is estimated nearly 200,000,000 visitors have visited. This documents the tower as the most visited monument by paying per year in the world.

The total structure is 1063 feet (324 meter) including the 79 feet (24meter) antenna. This tower replaced a monument in Washington after its construction in 1887 and remained the tallest until Chrysler Building in New York was built in 1930. Now tower ranks fifth among the tallest constructions of the France. Eiffel tower Structure weighs 7,300 tons. Also the structure is said to have shift away up to 7 inches (18 cm) from sun due to the metals thermal expansion, and sways 2 to 3 inches because of the wind.

Once in every seven years, three graded paint which is toned is applied to protect the tower from getting rusted and the quantity of paint used for maintenance is 50 to 60 tons. Color of the paint will be changed on occasions and there is no particular color for the tower. The Tower color changes from bottom to top with light to dark respectively and the tower is actually painted with three different colors to make it look the same. Emile Nouguier, Stephen Sauvestre and Maurice Koechlin worked as co-architects with Gustave Eiffel.

Gustave Eiffel is also known for the iron framework of the Statue of Liberty, he was well known for his bridge building with revolutionary techniques. For completing the Eiffel Tower’s work completely two years were not enough. For giving the exact shape each 12,000 iron piece were separately designed. It took 7 million nails to fit all the pieces and all were prefabricated. The structure was constructed to celebrate the centennial of French Revolution and tower was an entrance arch of the world Fair, Exposition Universelles. Built in 1887 to 1889, three hundred workers worked continuously, and the accidental risk was too much as the tower does not have any intermediate floors and is open frame, and has only two platforms. But lots of precautions were taken by Eiffel and only one man died in the whole of the construction.

Eiffel had planned to build this heavy structure in Canada for the 1888 Universal Exposition and it was rejected. When the construction began, there were lot of resistance from the public, and it is considered to be the masterpiece of structured art. Gutsave Eiffel had the permission for only 20 years for the tower to be erect which meant it had to be pulled down in 1909, and the Paris city authority had planned to ground it, but let it remain as it was found to be of very good for the communication purposes and now it is used for radio broadcasting, and as observation tower and also as advertising space.