EIFFEL AND HIS TOWER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23333, 29 April 1939, Page 11 (Supplement)

EIFFEL AND HIS TOWER

Famous Landmark In Beautiful Paris Was Completed

SILENT WITNESS OF EVENTS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

GUSTAVE EIFFEL, on March 31, 1889, unfurled a gigantic Tricolor atop the daring iron structure that, towering 984 feet above the ground, has become the emblem of Paris, writes Bernhard Ragner in the New York Times. That day was, for the modest and ingenious ''magician in iron," an hour of triumph; yet he ;was not to know how complete was that triumph until years later. He had won a victory over manifold and perplexing problems, and he had shown that derisive critics were wrong ; but he had not won Paris to that homage for his creation which only years of living with the Eiffel Tower could inspire. For that clay M. Eiffel gave to Paris a colossal landmark to orient the stranger within the, gates, a tourist attraction that has been "climbed" by no fewer than 18,000,000 persons, and a symbol of itself—a long-enduring monument to the genius that is France and the beauty that is Paris. Idea from America

started, four years before it was finished. The first two years were spent in proving mathematically that such a tower was feasible and in' "building" the tower on paper. Under Eiffel's direction 40 draughtsmen and calculators' worked two years on full-size plans for the structure. Every detail was worked out on 5000 sheets of drawing paper, each 40 by 36 inches. Each of the 15,000 iron plates that went into the finished structure was designed individually; the exact location of each of the 2,500,000 rivets was set down. So accurate was tins pre-eonstruction work that not the slightest alteration was necessary when the metal tower began to take shape. Unexpected Problems Construction of the massive foundations was begun on January 22, 1887. For each of th* four great 'pillars which rise 620 feet before merging into one towering shaft a base 86 feet square was built. The base foundations were put 51 feet underground and were locked to the earth with T-shaped keys far below the bed of the Seine. More than 31,000 cubic metres of soil were excavated and 1 12,000 cubic metres of masonry were used.

The foundations completed, the strange metallic skeleton began to ris»» on them on June 30, 1887. Unexpected problems came up: materials, men and workshops had to rise with the tower, and the safety of all had to be constantly assured. But Eiffel, oblivious of criticism, kept to his schedule and finally, two years after the first spadeful of earth had been turned, the tower was completed.

The .tower brought Eiffel both honour and wealth. For building it he was made an officer of the French Legion of Honour. As largest stockholder in the Eiffel Tower Company he received largo and continuous dividends. The company financed its construction, which cost 7,800,000 francs; but within two years it had more than paid for itself, and it still pays handsome dividends. With his growing wealth Eiffel extended his interest in aerodynamics, which had been one of his enthusiasms for years. As a result of his studies he received the Smithsonian Institution's Langley Medal in 1913 for his contribution to aviation. And he helped Marconi and Branley in their wireless experiments. Radio Station

At his own expense, he installed the first official radio station in France on top of the tower. The headquarters of the French Wireless Service are still housed there. A kindly, unassuming old gentleman even at the age of 91. Ik died in 1923. But the tower he built lives on, and now it rounds out its first half-cen-tury. Every year or t>o somebody starts a rumour that it is to be torn down; and everj T year the rumour is promptly denied, for the Eiffel Tower has come to stay. It is a part of Paris. It has lived with Paris, and seen Paris and France and the whole world change. Both peace and war have beaten about the base of Eiffel's tower. Fires, floods, scandals and riots have occurred within its shadow. Victory parades, days of mourning and rejoicing have passed, and during its lifetime there have been such times of partisan passion as those of the Dreyfus affair; and there have been moments of national reconciliation and sacrifice.

The original idea for the tower, strangely enough, caine from America, ■where nn iron structure of similar magnitude had been proposed for the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876, but never built. Eiflel took up the idea and proposed such a tower to draw visitors to the Paris Exposition of 1889. Th 9 however, drew criticism and abuse; it was cartooned and caricatured as the Tower of Babel. It was assailed as hideous, useless and humiliating. A petition protesting against it was signed by 300 "passionate lovers and defenders of menaced Parisian beauty." Among the signers were Charles Gounod (who later made the amende honorable), Francois Coppee and Alexandre Dumas fils. "I never saw such a horror," screamed Paul Verlaine; "it is frightful, odious and ignoble." To escape from "this inevitable, torturing nightmare" Guy de Maupassant exiled himself from the capital. Joris K. Huysmans stigmatised it as "a hollow chandelier ... a dishonour to Paris." Brilliant Engineer These words seem strange and inexplicable to-day; they were equally inexplicable to Gustave Eiffel in the 1880's. He knew what he was about, and he knew it could be done. He was a brilliant engineer and his fame as a bridge-builder was already world-wide. He had served as consulting engineer to Japan and Russia, and bridges bearing his name spanned rivers in Portugal and ludo-China, in Bolivia and Hungary. His structures always were daring in construction, but they were also things of strength and beauty. In 1861, when only 29 years old, he had built the remarkable viaduct over the Garonne River at Bordeaux, and in 1879 he had constructed the Garabit, Bridge in south-central France, which, Larousse calls his greatest, achievement. Eiffel had also designed the" intricate frbir- skeleton for Bartholdi's Statue oFLibery, which stands in New York Harbour. He was 53 years old when he began work ;,on the Eiffel Tower— rtwo years before actual: construction was

Standing, Guard As a beacon and watchtower it hns served meteorology, aviation, radio and television. It has told the time of day to Paris and the world. It has forecast sunshine and storms to the peasants of Flanders and Gascony, and the Breton fishermen plying their perilous trade. Standing guard, day and night, over Paris,, it has seen would-be dictators like General Boulanger challenge the French Republic, then disappear into oblivion and death. Such masterpieces have been born during its lifetime as Bergson's "Creative Evolution," Rodin's "Thinker," Rostand's "Cyrano de Bergerac" and Debussy's "Afternoon of a Faun." Such idols of the French people as Georges Clemenceau and Anatole France and Paul Bartholome have risen within sight of the tower, and such movements as Dadaism, Symbolism, Impressionism and Cubism have risen and declined.

The privilege of watching over the constant and unendiug change of Paris seems to be permanently lodged in the tower beside the Seine. And what changes the past half-century have brought! From leisurely, horsedrawn fiacres to speeding automobile?,; from gipsy orchestras to jazz bands; from stovepipe hats and frock coats to the casual garb of 1939; from the caki< walk to the Lambeth Walk (via the tango and the rhumba); from solemn,

elderly, bearded statesmen to hustling, youngish-looking, clean-shaven Ministers like Edouard Daladier and Georges Bonnet. Fifty years ago there were no motion pictures in Paris, no cocktails, no radio, no Notary club, no air lanes, no golf links, no subway, no torch-singers, no flood-lighted historic buildings, no Americanising process, no business houses along the Champs Elysces. Paris has changed, yet, as the paradoxical French proverb has it, "The more it changes, the more it remains the same." For there are certain things that seem eternal —the placid Seine, the patient fishermen upon its banks, the Comedie Francaise, the medieval towers of Notre "Dame. The opera's greenish roof is just as green as when the tower was built. The bookstalls on the quays have not altered, nor have Chez Maxime, tha Bal Tabarin and the Cafq de la Paix. Worth, Cartier, the dear old Temps, the Gobelins tapestry works, Galignani's bookshop, and the Folies Bergere still do business at the old stand. The foliage of the Bois de Boulogne lias lost none of its verdant spring freshness. Ever brighter, gayer and more animated is the majestic Place de la Concorde, for the symbolic statue of Strasbourg is no longer in mourning. And Yvette Guilbert is still singing I Departed Neighbours

True, the tower has lost old neighbours and acquired new ones. The oriental, brick Trocadero across the river finally succumbed to the criticisms heaped upon it. The giant Ferris Wheel. 320 feet high gave up the ghost in 1020. Farther away, the unaesthetic fortifications which once belted Paris have disappeared and been replaced by municipally-owned apartment houses. The picturesque coachmen, too, are gone, with the red waistcoats, glazed hats and peppery vocabularies. So are gold coins, double-decker autobuses, public letter-writers and the cabinets litteraires where one paid so many centimes per hour for the right to read. Cafes like the Closerie de Lilas, Les Deux Magots and the d'Harcourt liuger on, but the literary and artistic giants who once gave them atmosphere and charm liavo departed and left no successors. Generally speaking, there are no more canes for men, fans and corsets for women, curls for children and duels for politicians. True, a duel is fought now and then, even to-day, but there is more publicity than reality in the encounter. Like the tower, born of expositions, are . such new neighbours as the Petit Palais, the Grand Palais and the Alexandre 111. bridge, from the fair of 1000; the colonial museum in the Bois de Vincennes, legacy of Marsha! Lyautey's Overseas Exposition of 1031; and the New Trocadero (officially the Palais do Chaillot) and the neo-Greek Museum of Modern Art.