The Rise of ‘Eiffel Tower’

6 min readAug 7, 2021

Despite the commotion, the weak iron tower would live to see another day. To comprehend the history of the Eiffel Tower, it is necessary to realize that it was built in stages.

The building process took two years.

The project began in June 1884, and the first sketches were completed.
The construction begins on January 28th, 1887.
The first stage was finished on April 1st, 1888.
The second section was finished on August 14th, 1888.
The third and final stage, in which the tower was built in its entirety, ended on March 31st, 1889.
On March 31, 1889, the Eiffel Tower was unveiled. Gustave Eiffel ascended the Tower’s 1,710 steps to place the tricolored French flag at its apex. The Tower was 312 meters tall at the time.

Gustave Eiffel (1832–1923), a French engineer and architect, planned and built the Eiffel Tower for the 1889 Paris Exhibition (World’s Fair).

The Eiffel Tower in Paris is a world-famous man-made monument. It is so popular that over 200,000,000 people have visited it since its inception. Since 1889, the tower has stood in Paris, France, witnessing numerous world events.

It was the world’s tallest structure at the time, standing over 400 feet higher than Washington D.C.’s Washington Monument., which had previously been the tallest. The Tower was made up of 7,300 tonnes of iron and steel, which were held together by 2.5 million rivets.

It was a great task to construct such a large edifice in the limited period of time that the workers had before the Fair began.

Workers had to work uncomfortably high in the air, exposed to the wintery coldness of the environment, and try to weld the metal with near-frozen hands as the Tower grew taller throughout construction!

The Strong And Ever Astonishing Eiffel Tower

Many people throughout the world are amazed and awestruck by the Eiffel Tower’s endurance, given that it has been standing since 1889.

In 1956, a fire caused damage to the top of the tower.

Puddled iron, a type of wrought iron, is used to construct the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. This sort of iron is strong, malleable, and easy to weld.

As a result, wrought iron, which is used to construct the Eiffel Tower, has an extremely low carbon content. During the construction of the Eiffel Towers, it was the most commonly utilized type of iron.

Wrought iron is no longer produced on a commercial scale, as the only irons with a greater carbon content that may be released on the market are those with higher carbon content.

The United Kingdom alone was reported to manufacture 4 million tonnes of puddled iron during the construction of the Eiffel Tower.
It’s plausible to assume that the majority, if not all, of the iron materials used in the construction of the tower, came from Europe.

Welding in Construction

A total of 107 projects were submitted for consideration in the competition. Eiffel’s team began building once their design was chosen as the victor.

The foundation was laid on January 26, 1887, and the supports were put in place on July 1 of that year. On March 31, 1889, the project was completed after just over two years.

The initial drawings, on the other hand, were created by Eiffel’s chief engineers, Maurice Koechlin (mor-EES kayKLAHN) and Emile Nouguier (ay-MEEL NOOgee-ay).

They designed the tower in 1884 with the idea of putting it in a competition.

The organizers of the competition were looking for concepts for the 1889 World’s Fair’s centerpiece.

A tall tower consisting of a latticework of iron beams was designed by Koechlin and Nouguier.

Gustave Eiffel (1832–1923) designed hundreds of metal structures before building the Eiffel Tower, including a railway station, an observatory, and numerous bridges.

A total of 107 projects were submitted for consideration in the competition.

Eiffel’s team began building once their design was chosen as the victor. The foundation was laid on January 26, 1887, and the supports were put in place on July 1 of that year. On March 31, 1889, the entire project was completed, just over two years after it began.

The tower is made up of 18,038 components that weigh 7,300 tonnes (8,046 in.).

Wrought iron latticework was employed by Eiffel.

He intended to show that metal could be as strong as stone without weighing nearly as much. The tower’s parts were first assembled at Eiffel’s factory on the outskirts of Paris. A total of 150 people put together individual components to create portions that were roughly 5 meters (16 feet) long.

Eiffel’s engineering team was already skilled in the construction of bridge supports. Applying their knowledge to a tower 300 meters (984 feet) tall, on the other hand, was a risky proposition.

They hired Stephen Sauvestre, a French architect, to ensure that the finished tower was both beautiful and structurally sound.

Sauvestre suggested building massive curved arches to connect the tower’s columns and vast rooms with glass walls on each level.

At the factory, bolts were used to connect the different portions.

Bolts were substituted by rivets at the job site, which were pre-heated before installation. After cooling, the rivets shrank, shortening the shaft of each rivet and pulling the two “heads” together, ensuring a very tight fit.

A total of 2.5 million rivets were used, with four employees installing each one.

The foundation, which is made of stone and cement resting on a layer of gravel, was positioned to resist wind. During construction, the four legs sat on sandboxes and hydraulic jacks so the first platform would be level. This was required in order to ensure that the remainder of the tower above it would be properly balanced.