Alexandra Gustave Eiffel
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HISTORICAL NOTE issue of Scientific American noted that the construction was "without error, without Alexandra Gustave Eiffel accident, and without delay." Eiffel's cross-braced, open-air design offered minimum wind resistance; even December 1993 is the 70th anniversary at Garabit—held the record as highest in under a loading of hurricane force winds, of the death of Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, the world for many years. the top of the Tower has an estimated a renowned civil engineer and architect, Between 1887 and 1889, Eiffel complet- movement of only 22 cm. The Eiffel best known for the wrought-iron-lattice ed his most famous work, the Eiffel Tower's record height was not surpassed tower in Paris that bears his name. Tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris. until 1931 with the completion of the Nicknamed the "magician of iron," Eiffel The French government had held a com- Empire State Building in New York City, successfully completed radical new petition for designs for a suitable monu- which topped the height of the Tower by designs by carefully studying properties ment to commemorate the 100th anniver- 82 m. of the new building materials available to sary of the French Revolution. Out of Another notable but somewhat similar him, as well as by obtaining advanced more than 100 plans submitted, the construction was completed for the 1889 knowledge of the behavior of the metal Centennial Committee chose Eiffel's Paris Exposition—the huge metal and truss and arch forms under loading, such vision of a 300 m tower constructed of an glass Gallery of Machines, designed by as from wind forces. Eiffel's controversial open lattice of wrought iron, to be dedi- engineer Victor Contamin and architect successes brought about a revolution in cated at another Paris exposition, the C-L-F. Dutert. The open Gallery was sup- civil engineering and architectural Centennial Exposition of 1889. The ported by great three-hinged arches design. Tower was twice as high as the dome of spanning 114 m and extending 420 m. At 48,727 m2, the Gallery still holds the Eiffel was born December 15, 1832, in St. Peter's in Rome or the Great Pyramid of Giza—and nothing like it had ever world's record for the largest glass- Dijon, France. At the age of 23 he gradu- enclosed area. Unfortunately, the Gallery ated with honors from the Ecole Centrale been built. Though steel was newly available as a was so enormous that after the Ex- des Arts et Manufactures, and he imme- position, the French could find no regu- diately began to specialize in metal con- mass-produced construction material, Eiffel chose to use primarily wrought lar use for the facility and it was demol- struction, with a particular interest in ished in 1910. bridges. iron for constructing his great Tower. In 1858, only three years after his grad- Kirby et al. wrote that although steel was On a less successful note, Alexandre uation, Eiffel directed the construction of being used in other large construction Gustave Eiffel became involved in an iron railroad bridge across the projects in Scotland, Eiffel preferred to France's failed Panama Canal venture, Garonne River at Bordeaux. One of his use iron, though it would require more which caused his reputation to suffer. notable innovations for this bridge was metal (Engineering in History, McGraw- This project was headed by Ferdinand the use of compressed air to drive the Hill, 1956). Albert France-Lanord, direc- Marie de Lesseps, who had directed the piles and foundation caissons. After com- tor of the Centre de Recherches de construction of the Suez Canal. Exca- pleting several other bridges, Eiffel L'Histoire de la Siderugie, states that this vation began in 1882, with the aim of worked for the Paris Exposition of 1867, decision was probably made for econom- making a sea-level passage that would designing the arched and lofty Gallery of ic reasons because at the time steel was require no locks to allow ships to pass Machines. In the same year, he set up his even more expensive in France than through. By 1886, however, it became own firm for the construction of via- wrought iron. apparent that this was beyond the scope ducts, bridges, and harbor works. Though the project aroused great skep- of their engineering abilities, so de ticism and vocal opposition on engineer- Lesseps modified the design to allow for After the U.S. Civil War, the French a series of massive locks to raise and historian Edouard de Laboulaye pro- ing as well as aesthetic grounds, Eiffel succeeded in raising his tower in record lower ships across the passage. Eiffel was posed the creation of a great statue—the chosen to build these enormous locks, Statue of Liberty—to commemorate the time, with a small labor force and a cost of only about a million dollars. The cost but the many financial scandals sur- friendship between the United States and rounding the entire project—corruption, France. The French people contributed of construction was recouped from admission receipts during the first year waste, and mismanagement—ultimately funds, and work began in 1875 under the bankrupted the venture. direction of the prominent sculptor alone. Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi. Eiffel him- The tower required 6,400 metric tons Eiffel turned his interests to aerody- self designed the gigantic iron support (640,000 kg) of metal. Eiffel created a namics for the rest of his life. Outside of framework, working with Eugene- detailed set of plans, indicating all 12,000 Paris, he built the first aerodynamics lab- Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc. In 1885 Eiffel pieces of the Tower. Each part was pre- oratory, which included a wind tunnel, also designed the movable cupola for the fabricated and numbered for assembly. and he continued to perform aerodynam- observatory at Nice, which stood at a The actual construction used 2.5 million ic tests from his great Tower in Paris. He record 84 m. rivets, most of them in place before the dropped objects of various shapes and In 1877 Eiffel built a spectacular bridge structure was erected on the site. sizes down a wire slipway and measured over the Douro River in Portugal, using a The four semicircular arches in the their velocities on the ground. In his later 162 m trussed parabolic steel arch which Tower's base required elevators to years he wrote ground-breaking treatises was constructed from the piles without ascend on a curve, and special glass-cage on the science of aerodynamics. scaffolding. From 1880 to 1884 Eiffel cars were designed for the purpose. The The "magician of iron" died in Paris on made use of the same bridge design and entire construction proceeded smoothly December 27, 1923, after a life filled with a slightly larger arch (166 m) over the and efficiently, completed (except for spectacular achievements. Truyere in southern France. At 120 m installation of the special elevators) in above the river, this bridge—the Viaduct less than 27 months. The June 15, 1989 KEVIN J. ANDERSON 46 MRS BULLETIN/JANUARY 1994 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.139, on 26 Sep 2021 at 02:54:04, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1557/S0883769400038902.