Views of the Eiffel Tower

Sunday, April 1st, 2007 at 2:15 am

Chilli enjoying the sights of Paris. Here he is with the Eiffel Tower in the background.

In 2009 the Eiffel Tower will be 120 years old. Not bad for an structure that was only meant to be put in place on a temporary basis for the Paris Exposition of 1889.

The Eiffel Tower was designed by the French structural engineer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (b. Dec. 15, 1832, d. Dec. 28, 1923). He was awarded the opportunity to erect the Eiffel Tower after winning a design competition.

There were all manner of protests at the time from noted personages of the time such as Guy de Maupassant, Émile Zola, Charles Garnier (architect of the Opéra Garnier), and Alexandre Dumas and nature groups, all who felt the erection of the Eiffel Tower would be a blot on the Paris landscape.

Fortunately, their protests were ignored and the structure is still with us today. Although it was almost demolished in 1909 but the fact that its antenna was used for telegraphy. the Eiffel Tower was saved. And aren’t we all thankful that it was. It is a magnificent structure of lace ironwork.