The Eiffel Tower was by far the largest structure built for the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris. Eiffel was an entrepreneur and he had two engineers working with him to plan the iron tower, but not everyone was on board with the design. Audiences today may be surprised to hear that many Parisians thought the design was an eyesore and a blight on their beautiful city. The architect Stephen Sauvestre was commissioned to work on the design to make it less ugly. He drafted arches, glass-walled halls on every level, stonework around the base, and other ornamental details throughout the structure. Ultimately they stripped it down to a more utilitarian structure but they kept his idea of arches at the base. The form of the tower is largely determined by the engineers' calculations to cut down on wind resistance. The primary resistance came from writers and artists who criticized the tower throughout its construction. I think my favorite description came from Francois Coppee who called it “this mast of iron gymnasium apparatus, incomplete, confused and deformed.” Of course, this criticism faded as the world’s fair began and the tower was a huge hit. Over 2 million visitors came to marvel at it. While it did prove successful, the Eiffel tower was not intended to be a permanent fixture in the city. It was built to wow visitors in the fair and then to be torn down later. Eiffel only had a permit to have the structure stand for 20 years.
The idea that the tower would be temporary provided an interesting opportunity for another sort of creative visionary. A truly remarkable con artist named Victor Lustig sold the tower for scrap… two times.
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