Tower

The Eiffel Tower (French: La Tour Eiffel, /'tur,e'fel/) is an iron tower built on the Champ de Mars beside the River Seine in Paris. more...

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It is the tallest structure in Paris and possibly the most recognized monument in the world. Named after its designer, engineer Gustave Eiffel, it is the most visited monument in the world; 6,428,441 people visited the tower in 2005 and more than 200,000,000 since its construction . Including the 20.75 m (70 ft) antenna, the structure is 320.75 m (1070 ft) high which is about 81 storeys. In 1902, it was struck by lightning, which caused builders to reconstruct 300 feet of the top. The lights illuminating the tower also had to be replaced since they were damaged by the high energy of the lightning.

At the time of its construction in 1889, the tower replaced the Washington Monument as the world's tallest structure, a title it retained until 1930, when New York City's Chrysler Building (1063.33 ft tall) was completed. The tower is now the fifth-highest structure in France. The Eiffel Tower is the highest structure in Paris, with the second-highest being the Tour Montparnasse.

The structure of the Eiffel Tower weighs 7300 tons. There are 1660 steps (360 to the first level, another 359 to the second). It is not possible for the public to reach the summit via the stairs, lifts are required beyond the second platform. Lift tickets may be purchased at the base or either platform. Depending on the ambient temperature, the top of the tower may shift away from the sun by up to 18cm, due to thermal expansion of the metal on the side facing the sun. The tower also sways 6-7cm in the wind.

Maintenance of the tower includes applying 50/60 tons of three graded tones of paint every seven years to protect it from rust. On occasion, the color of the paint is changed — the tower is currently painted a shade of brownish-gray. However, the tower is actually painted three different colors in order to make it look the same color. The colors change from dark to light from top to bottom, but it looks the same because of the background (the sky being light and the ground being dark). On the first floor, there are interactive consoles hosting a poll for the color to use for a future session of painting. The co-architects of the Eiffel Tower are Emile Naugier, Maurice Koechlin and Stephen Sauvestre.

Background

The structure was built between 1887 and 1889 as the entrance arch for the Exposition Universelle, a World's Fair marking the centennial celebration of the French Revolution. It is located at geographic coordinates 48°51′29″N, 2°17′40″E. The tower was inaugurated on March 31, 1889, and opened on May 6. Three hundred workers joined together 18,038 pieces of puddled iron (a very pure form of structural iron), using three and a half million rivets, in a structural design by Maurice Koechlin. The risk of accident was great, for unlike modern skyscrapers the tower is an open frame without any intermediate floors except the two platforms. Yet because Eiffel took safety precautions including use of movable stagings, guard-rails and screens, only one man died, during the installation of Otis Elevator's lifts.

Read more at Wikipedia.org