Skip to main content

Gustave Eiffel Biography

Gustave Eiffel

(Alexandre Gustave Eiffel; Dijon, 1832-Paris, 1923) French engineer and architect.After graduating from the School of Arts and Crafts in Paris in 1855, he specialized in the construction of metal bridges.His first work of this type was carried out in Bordeaux in 1858; In 1877 he designed the impressive 160-meter metal arch of the bridge over the Douro, near Porto.A little later it surpassed its own mark with the Garabit viaduct, for many years the highest artificial laying in the world (120 meters).

Gustave Eiffel

Pioneer when considering the aerodynamic factor in its constructions, to the point of building the first aerodynamic laboratory in Auteuil, To his credit are works as diverse as the mobile dome of the Nice Observatory or the metal structure of the famous Statue of Liberty in New York.

However, his greatest achievement was the impressive steel tower located in Paris and which was named after him.The Eiffel Tower was built on the Champ de Mars in Paris for the Universal Exhibition of 1889.Today it is one of the best-known buildings in the world and has become the symbol of the French capital.

The organization of the Universal Exhibition, commemorating the centenary of the French Revolution (1789), was used by Gustave Eiffel to demonstrate to the world the technological advances in the architecture of his country through the erection of a tower 300 meters high and an iron structure.After the approval of the project (conceived by his collaborator Maurice Koechlin) by the competent body, it was erected on the left bank of the Seine, in the heart of Paris.The works began in 1887 and two years and 6,900 tons of iron were invested in its construction.

The tower stands on a square base of 125 meters, which has the four starting supports embedded in its corners in which the elegant arches that support the different floors are inscribed.The curves of the four sides provide an impression of strength and beauty and the gaps favor the passage of air, guaranteeing the stability of the building.Its large-capacity elevator system was the first to be installed in the world.Its 300 meters made it the tallest building in the world until the inauguration of the Empire State Building in New York in 1922.

Eiffel Tower

Its Construction aroused a heated controversy, as many considered it a crude structure lacking artistic sensibility.At the beginning of its construction, a group of intellectuals-among which Garnier and Zola stood out-signed a letter of protest addressed to the curator of the Exhibition, in which they complained about that "vertiginous and ridiculous tower that dominates Paris, like a gigantic dark factory chimney ".The composer Charles Gounod and the writer Alexandre Dumas Jr.wrote a letter of protest against the construction of the tower; the writer Guy de Maupassant left Paris to show his disgust.But once finished, many of the initial detractors were seduced "by the fantastic that delights our littleness.Planted on its arched legs, solid, huge, monstrous, brutal, it seems that, disregarding whistles and applause, it tries to seek and defy the sky, regardless of what moves at your feet."

Originally conceived as a temporary attraction, in 1909 it was bought by the French state.Later it was considered to be demolished due to high maintenance costs and the danger of future weakening of the structure by oxidation.However, the strong popular reaction to the idea that the tower, considered a national symbol, would disappear, led to the abandonment of this purpose.Nowadays, in addition to being a tourist attraction, the tower houses the facilities of the French Radio and Television and functions as a beacon for planes heading to Paris Orly airport.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Josep Maria de Sagarra Biography

Josep Maria de Sagarra (Josep Maria de Sagarra i Castellarnau; Barcelona, ​​1894-1961) Spanish poet, playwright and storyteller in the Catalan language who was the most popular author on the Catalan scene during the decades of 1920 and 1930.Son of a linajuda native family of the region of La Segarra, his father, Ferran de Sagarra i de Siscar, was a notable historian and archaeologist specialized in stealth.Sagarra's literary vocation was manifested from his childhood: at the age of eight he wrote verses and performed comedies at home. Josep Maria de Sagarra He was educated with the Jesuits of Barcelona; one of his teachers, Father Moreu, encouraged him in his penchant for poetry.At the age of twelve he saw his first verses published, and in 1914 his first book appeared: Primer llibre de poemes .He studied Law at the University of Barcelona: among his friends and classmates were the poets Josep Maria López-Picó and Carles Riba.It was presented to Joan Maragall, who guessed i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Heinrich maier Biography

Heinrich Maier (Heidenheim, 1867-Berlin, 1933) German philosopher.He produced a "critical realism", along the lines of H.Driesch.He is the author, among other works, of Aristotle's syllogistics (1896-1900) and of The philosophy of reality (1926-1935).
Post a Comment
Read more

Jose Maria Nemesio Otaño Biography

José María Nemesio Otaño (José María Nemesio Otaño y Eguino, Azcoitia, 1880-San Sebastián, 1956) Spanish composer and musicologist, one of the essential figures in the reform of sacred music in Spain during the first half of the 20th century. He studied organ in Guipúzcoa and later counterpoint and composition with Vicente Goicoechea in Valladolid.In 1896 he entered the Society of Jesus and soon obtained the position of organist at the Loyola Basilica. In 1907 he organized the First National Congress of Sacred Music in Valladolid, and that same year he founded the magazine Hispanic Sacred Music , which, following the proposals of Pope Pius X, served to give new air to the religious music that had been performed in Spain until now. Since 1911 he was director of the choir of the Pontifical University of Comillas, which became a model of good functioning for other religious choral groups in Spain.Simultaneously, Otaño continued composing, giving classes and organizing activities...
Post a Comment
Read more

Jorge Donn Biography

Jorge Donn (Buenos Aires, 1944-Lausanne, 1992) Argentine dancer and artistic director.He began his studies in 1952, at the Escuela del Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.In 1960, he was seen by Maurice Béjart, who was on tour in America with his dance company, and invited him to join it, which Donn did from 1962; two years later he joined it permanently in 1964 and became its first male figure.In 1963 he went to Europe to become a principal dancer with the Ballet du XXe Siècle.With this company he premiered numerous ballets by Maurice Béjart.He was a guest dancer with the New York City Ballet, the Opéra de Paris and the Bolshoi Ballet.In 1980 he was appointed artistic director of the Ballet du XXe Siècle.He appeared in the films Le Danseur (1968) and Les Uns et les Autres (1981).
Post a Comment
Read more

Jose Miguel Ullán Biography

José Miguel Ullán Spanish poet born in Villarino de los Aires (Salamanca) in 1944.He is the author of the poetry books El jornal (1965), Peninsular love (1965), Human power (1966), Maniluvios (1972), Frases (1975), Soldadesca (1979) and Named spots (1984).The essay genre includes the works Las soldades by Francisco Peinado (1977), Abecedario by Brinkman (1977) and Zóbel (1978).A regular contributor to written press and literary magazines, he brought together in Ardicia (1994) a wide sample of his poetic work.Always very close to plastic artists such as Chillida, Miró, Palazuelo or Saura, his reflections on the work of Tápies were published in 2000 under the title Tápies, ostinato .In 2003 he published two books of visual poems, Ni mu and Con todos las letras .The following year he returned to poetry written with Master of Keys .
Post a Comment
Read more

Jose Bono Biography

José Bono (José Bono Martínez; Salobre, Albacete, 1950) Spanish politician.A true heavyweight of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), he was president of the Community of Castilla-La Mancha for six consecutive legislatures (1983-2004) and Minister of Defense in the first cabinet of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (2004-2006).From 2008 to 2011 he presided over the Congress of Deputies. José Bono A Jesuit student in his childhood and a law degree from the University of Navarra, specialized in Criminal Law, José Bono took the political habit from a Catholic commitment that he held throughout his public career.Around 1973 he began to practice as a lawyer and joined the ranks of the PSI, reconverted into the Popular Socialist Party (PSP) by Professor Enrique Tierno Galván.The transition to democracy began after the death of dictator Francisco Franco (1975), José Bono was a candidate for this formation to the Congress of Deputies in the 1977 general elections, but did not win the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam Biography

Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam (Jean-Marie Mathias Philippe Auguste, Count of Villiers de l'Isle-Adam; Saint-Brieuc, 1838-Paris, 1889) French writer.Author of stories considered masterpieces of the genre, which present a novel synthesis of philosophical tale, horror story, science fiction and esotericism, his first works ( Two poetry essays, 1858; First poems, 1859) do not allow us to deduce what was his later production, once he had met Charles Baudelaire (1859) and Stéphane Mallarmé (1864), and discovered Hegel's philosophy.In 1866 he collaborated in the Parnasse Contemporain .In 1867 he founded the Revue des Lettres et des Arts and wrote The Intersign , his first "cruel tale." In 1870 he sided with the commune; In 1883, the publication of his Cruel Tales earned him some notoriety, but his living conditions remained precarious until his death.His other works include the novels Isis (1862) and The Future Eva (1886), the short novel Claire Lenoi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Francesco Clemente Biography

Francesco Clemente (Naples, 1952) Italian painter, associated with the Italian trans-avant-garde movement.He studied architecture at the University of Rome and was related to the artistic environments of Rome in the sixties, presided over by figures such as Cy Twombly and Alighiero Boetti.The presence of Beuys's work in Rome also exerted a powerful influence on Clement.In 1974 he traveled with Boetti to Afghanistan.Before his friendship with Boetti, Clemente had already drawn countless drawings in which he developed a personal vocabulary of symbols.His first paintings consisted of an abstract mixture of pictorial symbols with figures, animals and objects, sprinkled on the surface, in such a way that all the elements function independently and maintain their identity.His first solo exhibition took place at the Valle Giulia gallery in Rome in 1971.Since the early eighties his work has been present in important galleries and museums in Europe, America and Japan.
Post a Comment
Read more

Edgar faure Biography

Edgar Faure (Béziers, 1908-Paris, 1988) French politician.Doctor of Laws, he was director of Legislative Services of the French Committee for the Liberation of Algiers, and was part of the French delegation in the Nuremberg process.As a Radical Socialist deputy he was several times Minister of Economy and Finance and, on two occasions, President of the Council of Ministers.Excluded from the Radical Party, he evolved to Gaullist positions.When de Gaulle retired, he led the Gaullist left, returned to government as Minister of Social Affairs, and was elected President of the National Assembly in 1973, a position he held until 1978.
Post a Comment
Read more