part of the majority of Frenchmen by the stirring of 

 their imagination at the magnitude of the structure — 

 there grew a rising movement of disfavor. The 

 nucleus was, not surprisingly, formed mainly of the 

 intelligentsia, iDut objections were made by prominent 

 Frenchmen in all walks of life. The most interesting 

 point to be noted in a retrospection of this often 

 violent opposition was that, although the Tower's every 

 aspect was attacked, there was remarkably little 

 criticism of its structural feasibility, either by the 

 engineering profession or, as seems traditionally to be 

 the case with bold and unprecedented undertakings, 

 by large numbers of the technically uninformed laity. 

 True, there was an undercurrent of what might be 

 characterized as unease by many property owners in 

 the structure's shadow, but the most obstinate element 

 of resistance was that which deplored the Tower as a 

 mechanistic intrusion upon the architectural and 

 natural beauties of Paris. This resistance voiced its 

 fury in a flood of special newspaper editions, petitions, 

 and manifestos signed by such lights of the fine and 

 literary arts as De Maupassant, Gounod, Dumas 

 fils, and others. The eloquence of one article, which 

 appeared in several Paris papers in February 1887, 

 was typical: 



We protest in the name of French taste and the national 

 art culture against the erection of a staggering Tower, like 

 a gigantic kitchen chimney dominating Paris, eclipsing by 

 its barbarous mass Notre Dame, the Sainte-Chapelle, the 

 tower of St. Jacques, the Dome des Invalides, the Arc de 

 Triomphe, humiliating these monuments by an act of mad- 

 ness.' 



Further, a prediction was made that the entire city 

 would become dishonored by the odious shadow of 

 the odious column of bolted sheet iron. 



It is impossible to determine what influence these 

 outcries might have had on the project had they been 

 organized sooner. But inasmuch as the Commission 

 had, in November 1886, provided 1,500,000 francs 

 for its commencement, the work had been fairly 

 launched by the time the protestations became loud 

 enough to threaten and they were ineffectual. 



Upon completion, many of the most vigorous prot- 

 estants became as vigorous in their praise of the 

 Tower, but a hard core of critics continued for several 

 years to circulate petitions advocating its demolition 

 by the government. One of these critics, it was said — 

 probably apocryphally — took an office on the first 

 platform, that being the only place in Paris from 

 which the Tower could not be seen. 



1 Translated from Jean A. Keim, La Tour Eijfel, Paris, 1950. 



Figure 3. — Trevethick's proposed cast-iron 

 tower (1832) would have been 1,000 feet high, 

 100 feet in diameter at the base, 12 feet at the 

 top, and surmounted by a colossal statue. 

 (From F. Dye, Popular Engineering, London, 

 1895, p. 205.) 



The Tower's Structural Rationale 



During the previously mentioned studies of high 

 piers undertaken by the Eiffel firm, it was established 

 that as the base width of these piers increased in 

 proportion to their height, the diagonal bracing con- 

 necting the vertical members, necessary for rigidity, 

 became so long as to be subject to high flexural stresses 

 from wind and columnar loading. To resist these 

 stresses, the bracing required extremely large sections 

 which greatly increased the surface of the structure 

 exposed to the wind, and was, moreover, decidedly 

 uneconomical. To overcome this difficulty, the 

 principle which became the basic design concept of 

 the Tower was developed. 



The material which would otherwise have been 

 used for the continuous lattice of diagonal bracing 

 was concentrated in the four corner columns of the 

 Tower, and these verticals were connected only at 



PAPER 19: ELEVATOR SYSTEMS OF THE EIFFEL TOWER 



