#HistoryTalk# On March 31, 1889 (the first day of the third lunar month), the Eiffel Tower was inaugurated.
The Eiffel Tower is one of the symbols of Paris and is affectionately called the "Iron Lady" by the French. Along with the Empire State Building in New York and the TV Tower in Tokyo, it is known as one of the three most famous buildings in the West. Standing on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France, next to the Seine, the French government tendered for the construction of the 1889 World's Fair to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the victory of the French Revolution, and finally established the Eiffel Tower. Construction began on January 26, 1887, and construction of the Eiffel Tower officially began on January 28, 1887. 250 workers worked 8 hours a day in winter and 13 hours in summer, and finally on March 31, 1889, the steel tower was completed. The Eiffel Tower has more than 18,000 metal parts, weighs 7,000 tons, and 7 million holes were drilled and 2.5 million rivets were used during construction. Since each component on the tower is strictly numbered beforehand, there was no mistake in the assembly. The construction was carried out completely in accordance with the design, and no changes were made in the middle, which shows the rationality of the design and the accuracy of the calculation. According to statistics, there are more than 5,300 design sketches of the tower alone, including 1,700 full drawings. The Eiffel Tower was 300 meters tall and remained the tallest building in the world until 1930. It was completed on March 31, 1889, and became the world's tallest building at the time. The Eiffel Tower started at 312 meters in height and is now 330 meters high.
Architectural layout
The first floor is 57 meters high and covers an area of 4415 square meters, the second floor is 115 meters high and covers an area of 1430 square meters, and the third floor is 276 meters high and covers an area of 250 square meters. There are five elevators from the square to the second floor and two double elevators from the second floor to the top floor. The tower has five areas: square, first floor, second floor, top floor and garden, and receives 7 million visitors every year.
On the ground floor there are new interactive lessons designed for children, where you can learn the history of the tower for free. In the exterior corridor there is a path of discovery, with screens, touch screens, shop windows, digital photo albums, replicas of objects and other aspects of the Eiffel Tower. The ground floor also offers a place to rest, the Gustave Eiffel Lounge for all types of professional events between 9:30 am and 1:00 am, with a maximum capacity of 300 people, with professional equipment. The spiral staircase, which was demolished in 1983, can be seen on the ground floor. On the second floor you can see all the monuments of Paris: the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Grand Palais, etc., with the Jules Verne restaurant, buffet, macaron bar and two shops.
On the top floor is the reconstructed office of Gustave Eiffel, which houses the gramophone presented by Edison. At the top of the tower there is a panoramic directional sign that shows the distance from the world's major cities. The top floor also houses an 1889 model of the top of the tower, made at 1:50 scale, painted in the tower's original color "reddish brown". There is a champagne bar on the top floor.
Garden, a free garden has been designed next to the Eiffel Tower, making this a separate space in the "Eiffel Tower Experience", where you can enter the square and then enter the Eiffel Tower. The reconstruction project of the garden was completed in 2018, and there are more than 60 kinds of trees such as weeping willows, cedars, horse chestnuts, etc.; 20,000 shrubs; and 2,000 species of perennials suitable for all seasons; There is also a plane tree planted in 1814.
The structure of the Eiffel Tower is both intuitive and simple: at the bottom are four giant angular inclined piers (54° inclination) distributed on each side of 128 meters on a long base, supported by the first platform at an elevation of 55 meters; The first platform and the second platform with an elevation of 115 meters are connected by 4 slightly curved corner columns; Transforms upwards into an elongated, almost vertical, 189-meter-high, rigid obelisk that leads straight to the top platform; There was a small curved roof and an erected flagpole (now a television antenna) in the upper part of the platform. The slight curvature of the corner columns between the first and second platforms enhances the feeling of the tower rushing into the sky. All columns and obelisks are constructed using network trusses consisting of X-shaped wind-resistant diagonal braces. The tower has 4 solid caisson foundations that extend straight to the lower lying forceful soil layer.
At the base of the first platform there are 4 large arches spanning the sloping piers. It is for decoration and is not required for structural stress. These four arches destroy the linearity and simplicity of the tower structure, and also damage the beauty of the tower body, but this "pseudo-arch" has been recognized as a basic part of the tower shape.
Architectural features
Eiffel Tower is a very light structure, if it is regarded as a solid structure, its equivalent density is only 7~8 times the density of the surrounding air, the Eiffel Tower tower between the bottom of the tower and the second floor platform between the tower column is equipped with an inclined elevator, the second floor platform to the top of the tower is equipped with an elevator, stairs and elevators are integrated into the structural whole according to the linear shape of the main structure, there is no feeling of rigid addition. The tower has legs made of lattice beams, which are supported on the foundation piers at an "angle" angle, from the first platform to the first platform, the lattice beam frame column inclination is slightly correct, the platform is almost vertical to the upper column, and finally closed together at the top of the tower. The columns are connected by equally spaced beams, which are the positions of the platforms. The hollowed-out mesh-like steel frame greatly reduces the weight of the tower.
The entire structure of the Eiffel Tower is tall and majestic, narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, giving people a balanced and stable beauty. From the size of the entire tower to the small part of the three-dimensional coordinate system, symmetry in the three-dimensional coordinate system. There are three kinds of basic frame elements, and the many members of the tower body are arranged and combined in an orderly manner according to the composition law, so that many form a unity. At the same time, the order of use of the three frame elements is also from bottom to top, gradually simplified, lightweight, and reasonably distributes the stiffness of structural components. At the lower beam, the tower column has been opened widely, so the span of the beam has also increased accordingly, and its function as a link is relatively weakened and the effect of crossing is reflected. In order to further strengthen the connection between the tower column and the beam and unify it as a whole, and at the same time fully reflect the span effect of the tower bottom due to the forking of the tower column, a set of giant arches was designed.
The designer of the Eiffel Tower was the French architect Gustave Eiffel. In his early years he was known as an expert in dry bridges. His masterpieces in his life have spread all over the world, but it is the tower that bears his name that makes him famous. In his own words: the Eiffel Tower "flooded me as if I had only built her all my life". At the beginning, although the French government decided to build the world's tallest tower in Paris, it provided only 1/5 of the required cost. In order to realize his design, Eiffel mortgaged his construction company and all his property to the bank as a construction investment.
Anecdote
On January 26, 1887, the work began; On February 14 of the same year, people in the literary, artistic and architectural circles of Paris launched a protest against the construction of the Eiffel Tower, and 300 people, including the famous French writers Maupassant, Alexandre Dumas, Zola, etc., signed the protest book "Against the Construction of the Eiffel Tower". On November 5, 1898, the first wireless telegraph test was carried out between the Eiffel Tower and the Pantheon (4 km away), with a transmitter installed on the top of the tower. In 1940, the Germans invaded France, and in order to prevent Hitler from climbing the Eiffel Tower, the French destroyed the elevator on the tower.
In 1944, the German army withdrew from Paris, Hitler ordered the bombing of the Eiffel Tower, Scholtitz did not carry out the order, and history should thank him.
Protective measures
To prevent oxidative erosion of the Eiffel Tower, it is protected with several layers of paint. Since its construction, the Eiffel Tower has been repainted 19 times, an average of every 7 years. Since 2019, the Eiffel Tower has been coated for the 20th time, which will last for more than 3 years.
In anticipation of the 2024 Paris Olympics, the Eiffel Tower will be repainted at a cost of around 60 million euros. This will be the 20th stucco restoration of the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower has achieved two breakthroughs, one is to successfully apply the material of iron to the main construction of the building, and has made great technological innovations in the manufacturing process and assembly process of iron components. The second is to solve the problem of self-weight and wind load of the building in the design of the structure, breaking through the new height of human architectural history. The Eiffel Tower has survived a century of ups and downs, but after a major renovation in the early 80s, it still stands majestically on the banks of the Seine. It is the pride of all the French people.