Eiffel Tower

The plan

Two of Eiffel's engineers drew it first

The design is attributed to Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, two senior engineers at Eiffel's company. In May 1884 Koechlin sketched the idea. Eiffel showed little enthusiasm at first, then approved further study and bought the rights to the patent.

The protest

A Committee of Three Hundred protested against it

A Committee of Three Hundred, one member for each metre of the tower's height, was formed to oppose the tower, and its petition called it useless and monstrous. Guy de Maupassant supposedly ate lunch in the tower's restaurant every day, because it was the one place in Paris where the tower was not visible.

330metres tall, the tallest structure in Paris

The build

Every piece was made off site and bolted together

Work on the foundations began on 28 January 1887 and the main structural work was finished at the end of March 1889. No drilling or shaping was done on site: a part that did not fit was sent back to the factory. In all, 18,038 pieces were joined using 2.5 million rivets.

The reprieve

Meant to come down in 1909, kept for the radio

It was commissioned as a temporary structure for the 1889 Exposition Universelle and slated for dismantling in 1909. It was spared because of its use in radio telegraphy, and in 1910 it became part of the International Time Service.

The war

In 1944 an order to destroy it was ignored

When Germany occupied Paris in 1940 the French cut the lift cables, and the lifts were not repaired until 1946. In August 1944 Hitler ordered General Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, to demolish the tower with the rest of the city. Von Choltitz disobeyed.