One of the most unknown works of the “iron wizard” is not in Paris, but in New York. It is the interior of the Statue of Liberty. It was sealed by the architect Auguste Bartholdi, but he made the iron structure, thus resuming the work started by Viollet le Duc. Few know that the skeleton of one of the most emblematic symbols of New York was made by the same man who made the most iconic of Paris: Gustave Eiffel.
France today commemorates the centenary of the death of the man who drew the image of modern Paris. Eiffel went down in history for the mythical Tower, but he was multifaceted: entrepreneur, engineer and scientist, his work is omnipresent in the world of architecture. He introduced metal and renewed civil engineering, he worked for several railway companies and carried out civil works, bridges, factories and interventions for several universal exhibitions. For 30 years, in addition, he dedicated himself to scientific research in fields as diverse as meteorology, aerodynamics and aeronautics.
His great influence in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries has shaped the contemporary landscape, although most of his legacy has been hidden by his great masterpiece. “It cannot be denied that, today, the Eiffel Tower is the symbol of Paris, the city of lights, and of the France that we have in the collective imagination, from cinema, graphic arts, literature… This image began to be built at the beginning of the 20th century, partly thanks to Eiffel,” explains Laetitia Levantis, art expert at the French Sociological Research Center (CNRS, for its acronym in French).
All this despite the fact that, at first, the tower generated a lot of rejection and was criticized by the illustrious of the time. Some called her monstrous, evil and even diabolical. There was a manifesto, signed by several intellectuals such as Alexandre Dumas, the architect Charles Garnier (the man responsible for the Paris Opera) and the author Guy de Maupassant.
The latter, installed in Paris during the Universal Exhibition of 1889, “suddenly left France to go to Florence and take refuge in a certain way in the art of the Renaissance,” relates Frédéric Seitz, an expert on the French engineer, in Gustave Eiffel, the triumph of the engineer.
“Writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate lovers of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, we come to protest with all our strength, with all our indignation, in the name of the well-known French taste, in the name of art and French history, threatened with the rise, in the heart of our capital, of the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower, which public malice, often lacking common sense and a spirit of justice, has already baptized with the name ‘Tower of Babel'”.
The Eiffel Tower has been, since the beginning of the 20th century, the symbol of Paris, the city of lights, and of the France that we have in the collective imagination.
Thus began the letter of indignation from several intellectuals against what is today the undisputed symbol of the capital. Already then, and despite the criticism, the French engineer had a notable body of work behind him. Eiffel (Dijon, 1832 – Paris, 1923) came from a family of German origin. He had a surname that was unpronounceable to the French and, therefore, when his grandfather settled in this country, he changed it to Eiffel, which is the name of the German region where they lived.
He studied in Dijon, although he was not exactly an exemplary student. “He was not a brilliant student, he was considered mediocre, he was reproached for delays and absences and lack of discipline. Even then he did not seem to be very interested in public works or architecture,” says Frédéric Seitz in the aforementioned work.
He wanted to enter the Polytechnic School but, although he passed several exams, he was not accepted, although “he was classified in a very good rank after the last one admitted.” Finally, he entered the Central School of Arts and Manufactures. “Eiffel is one of those civil engineers from the bourgeoisie who, once they obtained their diploma, found themselves abandoned with his initiative, without sufficient personal capital,” explains the expert.
Among his first commissions were the construction of the shopping centers at the Toulouse and Agen stations, in 1864. He was only 25 years old when he was in charge of the construction of the iron bridge in Bordeaux. It is one of the key works, which marks the transition to metal construction. Anchored 25 meters deep under water, on the Garonne River, it was a complex work that allowed him to implement hitherto novel techniques that he would later reuse. Its foundations, for example, are built using a new technique: injecting compressed air into the pillars.
This is one of the largest iron works built at that time. Eiffel created his own company and quickly acquired an international reputation. It is then that he carried out other emblematic works, such as the Maria Pia bridge over the Douro (Porto), the Garabit viaduct, in France, and the iron structure of the Statue of Liberty.
The first, which rises over 160 meters, marks the view of the Portuguese city, although trains no longer run, and is the one that inspires the Garabit viaduct, in France, considered one of the most beautiful in the world. With a height of 122 meters and a length of more than 500, it was inaugurated in 1884 and took four years to build. Its arch, measuring 165 meters, was the largest of the time.
At that time there was a debate in France that confronted architects who defended traditional ideas with engineers who represented the forces of progress and modernity through the use of different materials, such as metal. “It’s where Gustave Eiffel came into the picture, all those evolutions and mutations are what he initiated and then evolved throughout his life,” says Seitz. “At his time the best of French engineering crystallized, in what has to do with the new metallurgical techniques that revolutionized architecture,” he adds in his work.
He crystallized the best of French engineering and promoted new metallurgical techniques that revolutionized architecture.
All those mentioned are prior to the tower. He is also the author of Le Paradis Latin, in Paris, a building that today houses a theater, or that of the Hermitage hotel in Monte Carlo (Monaco). Added to this are the post office building in Saigon, Vietnam, which was built during the French protectorate, and the Nice observatory. This is the work of architect Charles Garnier, but Eiffel designed its impressive dome, one of the most famous in the world. He presented a project that had to be modified several times, as it was considered “too innovative.”
His international legacy reaches Latin America, where he carried out several projects, including the Cathedral of San Marco, in Arica (Chile). In total, he is owed more than 500 works in 30 countries, especially bridges, railways, factories and civil works. Eiffel, who dedicated the last 30 years of his life to research, died on December 27, 1923 in Paris.
The Eiffel Tower, designed for the 1889 World’s Fair, was built in just 26 months. It surpassed twice the tallest monument of the time (now the Chrysler Building in New York). It was to be demolished but Eiffel opposed it. For Levantis, it is normal that the rest of his legacy has been buried by the Eiffel Tower, “the best-known monument in France along with Versailles and the Louvre Museum. It is the symbol of modernity, since its construction at the end of the 19th century. “.