BBC Eiffel Tower Building the Impossible
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00:00A majestic presence has towered over Paris for more than a hundred and thirty years.
00:10A symbol of progress and of breaking boundaries, France's Iron Lady is a global icon.
00:23In 1889, Gustave Eiffel achieved the impossible, the dream of every engineer, to build the
00:36tallest tower in the world.
00:43In the heart of Paris, he raised this 7,300-ton iron colossus in just two years, two months
00:50and five days.
00:53But this tower could not have existed without the engineering innovations of the three preceding
00:58decades, and Gustave Eiffel's other work found all over the world.
01:05From the bridges of Vietnam to the sweeping Galibi Viaduct, Bordeaux's rivers to the secrets
01:10of New York's Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower is the crowning glory of a life spent
01:16pushing back limits.
01:19What challenges, both human and technical, did Eiffel and his engineers face with such
01:24a massive project?
01:26And how did his scientific research help Eiffel save the tower from destruction?
01:35This is the epic story of France's Iron Lady.
01:49On the 31st of March, 1889, Gustave Eiffel refused to allow anyone else to unfurl the
01:57French flag at the top of his tower.
02:03Aged nearly 60, he faced the ever-changing winds of an icy winter to mark the completion
02:09of his greatest masterpiece, 300 metres over Paris.
02:23The Eiffel Tower was born out of the Industrial Revolution, the age of iron and coal.
02:31The plentiful supply of coal in Great Britain, where everything started at the end of the
02:3618th century, changed the world, along with revolutionary inventions like the steam engine,
02:43the railway, and the steel industry.
02:47One foundation technology of the Industrial Revolution was a type of wrought iron called
02:53puddled iron.
02:55Strong yet flexible, it was obtained by melting iron ore and introducing oxygen until it was
03:00decarbonized.
03:03In the 1850s, the production of puddled iron boomed with the mechanization of the blast
03:09furnace.
03:11In France, a flurry of forges and metal construction companies emerged.
03:18One of these firms was founded in 1864 by the 32-year-old engineer Gustave Eiffel.
03:26Eiffel composed his own grammar of construction by using techniques whose main elements
03:34were the sawmill and the cross-beam, all of which were assembled by derivatives.
03:41This allowed him to have lighter, more up-to-date constructions.
03:47These techniques allowed him to quickly build works that broke records in length,
03:53height, and range.
03:55And this is what allowed him to set out to conquer the world.
04:01Since the beginning of the 19th century, architects had dreamed of exceeding the Gothic cathedrals
04:07and the Egyptian pyramids.
04:09Two projects for 300-meter-high towers had emerged in England and the United States,
04:15but neither was completed.
04:18Two prominent engineers from the Eiffel Company, Émile Nouguier and Maurice Coeplin, were
04:24also tempted by the idea of building a 300-meter tower.
04:30But how to go about it?
04:34Using the hallmark iron construction techniques of the Eiffel Company, Coeplin and Nouguier
04:39came up with a pylon design.
04:44Coeplin was not impressed.
04:49For art historian Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, the yearning for the gigantic fits the historical
04:55context of the 19th century.
04:59Rise of capitalism, rise of empire, rise of nationalist rivalries, all of that feeds the
05:07kind of competition to prove one's modernity, efficiency, capacity, to astonish people with
05:19the surprises of things like the Eiffel Tower.
05:26It was the in-house architect, Stéphane Sauvestre, who won Eiffel over to the project, gracing
05:33the pylon with decorative arches and adding platforms to welcome the public.
05:39He transformed the unattractive pylon into an elegant monument.
05:48Eiffel saw that a revolutionary tower could be the main attraction of the 1889 World's
05:54Fair in Paris, and committed himself to the project.
06:00A fabulous 300-meter iron tower from which people could admire the city of Paris.
06:08The Eiffel Tower project was born.
06:14The tower would be higher than Notre Dame, the pyramids of Egypt, and almost twice as
06:19high as the Washington Monument, which held the world record at 169 meters.
06:26He feared that at 300 meters, the wind would be destructive.
06:30How would the engineers ensure that their tower could withstand high winds?
06:39Gustave Eiffel built this facility in Paris towards the end of his life, an aerodynamics
06:44laboratory which is still in use.
06:47This is where Benoit Romand, an expert in structural mechanics, is comparing the effect
06:52of wind on models of the Eiffel Tower and a tower with straight sides.
07:17Why is the Eiffel Tower model much better at resisting wind than the other model?
07:47One of Eiffel's most impressive earlier achievements is this magnificent railway
08:03bridge in Auvergne in central France.
08:08The Gowerby Viaduct was opened in 1884, just as the project for the Eiffel Tower was being
08:14conceived.
08:21Standing 120 meters above the Trouillet River, it connects the two sides of the valley with
08:27a parabolic arch of unprecedented length, 165 meters, a record for the time.
08:38Patricia Verne Rocher is an expert in the history of the bridge.
08:43The metallic structure is a fabulous web-like arrangement of iron beams.
09:04For Eiffel and his engineers, every bridge was a chance to introduce technical improvements.
09:10A parabolic shape would be better able to resist the forces produced by heavy trains.
09:16The organizational expertise needed on site testifies to the technical know-how and talent
09:23of Eiffel's company.
09:26To build this viaduct, Eiffel showed a virtuoso audacity.
09:30They opted for the innovative portafolio launching technique, which consists of building the
09:36arch and the platform from the banks.
09:41The central part of the bridge is built by relying on existing batteries.
09:46A cable system then supports the two half-arches, which advance over the void until their junction
09:53at 120 meters above the river.
09:56And this requires extreme precision in the construction of the pieces, as in the assembly,
10:01because the rivet holes must coincide exactly at the time of the junction of the arch.
10:09Eiffel himself says that they arrived there with an almost mathematical precision.
10:18The perfectly mastered completion of this civil engineering work, to worldwide admiration,
10:24was key to the success of the 300-meter tower project.
10:36With the Garaby Viaduct works behind them, the Eiffel team could now focus on building
10:41the highest monument in the world.
10:46In June 1884, Eiffel, Coquelin, Nouguier and Sauvest exhibited a model at the Decorative
10:53Arts Exhibition.
11:02Building a needle in the heart of Paris caught the imagination of the French Minister of
11:07Trade, Edouard Lacroix, who was looking for a revolutionary idea to boost the forthcoming
11:13World's Fair in 1889.
11:38What better choice than a record-breaking monument?
11:44The publicity for Paris and the very young Third Republic would be global.
11:52The 300-meter tower would be topped by a beacon.
11:59Like another monument intended to enlighten the world, which also owes a lot to Eiffel's genius.
12:14In 1879, Gustave Eiffel was involved in the construction of a remarkable work,
12:20Liberty Enlightening the World, which would later become the Statue of Liberty.
12:26The sculpture, by Auguste Bartholdi, was a gift from the Republic of France to the American
12:31people, to mark the centenary of their independence.
12:35The tallest statue in the world at 92 meters, including its pedestal,
12:40was another artistic and technical challenge on an unprecedented scale.
13:10They imagined an internal secondary skeleton, which, through a flexible bar,
13:15carried the thin copper skin that constitutes the statue.
13:21Rather than making it rigid at all costs, they preferred flexibility,
13:27the strategy of the rose, in short, rather than that of the oak.
13:33The statue and its structure crossed the Atlantic in 210 special crates.
13:41Sighted at the entrance of New York Harbour, it would become an undisputed symbol of the city.
13:52It is 6am. Before opening to the 20,000 daily visitors,
13:58ranger Matthew Hoosh climbs up into the heart of the statue.
14:04This 162-step staircase gives an insight into Eiffel's structure.
14:11The similarities with the tower are clear.
14:14What's most impressive about the interior of the Statue of Liberty is how all of this
14:19iron and steel works together to hold her over 300 feet above New York Harbour.
14:26Over 100 years of wind and rain, she still stands because of this interior structure.
14:36The inside of the Statue of Liberty can be a disorienting place,
14:41but what you're seeing are hundreds of copper plates,
14:45so that's the dark metal that you see all along the interior here, that's her skin.
14:51And those copper plates were all riveted together with thousands of little copper rivets.
14:57But the copper skin has to be held up, so we can see there are thousands of steel bars
15:03connect the copper plates to the secondary iron bars,
15:07and all of those iron bars connect back here to these iron pylons.
15:14The iron structure designed by Eiffel's engineers
15:17accommodates this staircase up to Miss Liberty's crown and its unique view of New York.
15:28This view became popular over time, and as visitors keep coming to the Statue of Liberty,
15:35the Statue of Liberty becomes the Statue of Liberty.
15:38She becomes an icon that represents not just New York City, but the United States herself.
15:44Thanks to its impressive structure, the Statue of Liberty has withstood the test of time.
15:51Since its inauguration in 1886, it has given New York a unique identity.
16:00Its universal appeal reflected on Gustav Eiffel.
16:06But despite this resounding success,
16:09his project for the 300-meter Paris Tower had stalled for lack of a firm government commitment.
16:18Fortunately, Gustav Eiffel was a shrewd businessman,
16:22winning orders in South America, Portugal, the Philippines and the French colonies of Indochina.
16:29The Eiffel Company could afford to wait out the bureaucratic delays of the French government.
16:37It is in Vietnam that Eiffel built the greatest number of structures.
16:41The Pont de Missagerie, in Ho Chi Minh City, is well known.
16:49But dozens of portraits of Eiffel are still on display.
16:53The old city once boasted a hundred of them.
17:24The Vietnam War and rampant urbanisation have probably destroyed most of Eiffel's portable bridges.
17:31But after studying satellite images of the city,
17:34Bertrand Lemoine is convinced that some of them might still be in use.
17:53When I looked at maps and aerial photographs in Paris,
17:57I said to myself, this bridge looks like an Eiffel Bridge.
18:04It looks a bit like railway tracks.
18:07Yes, they are very simple elements.
18:09Corners, U-shapes, I-shapes,
18:12which are in fact a basic element of metal construction
18:15and which allow to build these shapes with triangles,
18:18so they give a great rigidity to the bridge.
18:20Well, we can really confirm that this is a typical Eiffel Bridge,
18:24with five trusses, each about 24 metres long.
18:30So it is really extraordinary to find it here.
18:42Another bridge of the same type has been spotted.
18:51It is really a beautiful specimen of a so-called portable Eiffel Bridge.
18:56Portable because we could carry the elements that were prefabricated,
19:01prefabricated with corners,
19:03assemblies made by rivets in Paris.
19:06And then it is the work that we then assemble on site to build the bridge.
19:11And we see this large-format mechanism,
19:14and this one, the Ractum Bridge, still survives 140 years later.
19:21Eiffel will develop the invention of portable bridges
19:24around the time when he designed the Eiffel Tower.
19:27On the other hand, it is much simpler to design than the Eiffel Tower,
19:30but it is sold at the same price.
19:32So it is a real financial manoeuvre for the company
19:34since it will sell its bridges for export all over the world.
19:37So it is a simple invention,
19:39but in reality it will turn out to be extremely lucrative.
19:43Back in Paris,
19:45Gustave Eiffel could count on the unfailing support
19:48of the French Minister of Trade.
19:51Edouard Leroy had launched a competition
19:54inviting submissions for the 1889 World's Fair.
19:58Among other projects,
20:00contestants shall study the possibility of erecting an iron tower
20:04on the Eiffel Bridge.
20:06Among other projects,
20:08contestants shall study the possibility of erecting an iron tower
20:12on the Champs-de-Mars.
20:14It so happened that the specified dimensions
20:17were exactly those of Eiffel's design.
20:21Candidates only had 15 days to submit their designs.
20:37After months of struggle, Eiffel had won.
20:40He would have his tower,
20:42and he would finance it himself.
21:07At the company's headquarters in Le Valois, Paris,
21:11engineers and draftsmen feverishly started work.
21:15The World's Fair would open on the 6th of May, 1889,
21:19giving them two years and two months to build the tower.
21:23The tower was to be built in the summer of 1889.
21:27It was to be built in the summer of 1889.
21:30It was to be built in the summer of 1889.
21:33Giving them two years and two months to build the tower.
21:37The countdown had begun.
21:45Every part of the tower was calculated to one-tenth of a millimetre.
21:50More than 5,000 drawings were produced by this office.
21:567,300 tonnes of iron were ordered,
21:59and barely 20 days after the concession was signed,
22:02on the 27th of January, 1887,
22:05the first earthworks began
22:07on the vast, cleared expanse of the Champs-de-Mars.
22:14Using shovels and pickaxes,
22:16400 workers laboured for nine hours a day
22:20to dig four huge holes.
22:22Rubble was disposed of in wheelbarrows,
22:25horse-drawn carts and mine carts.
22:28The four legs of the tower had to be anchored deep in the ground.
22:3231,000 cubic metres of earth,
22:35a volume equivalent to ten Olympic-sized swimming pools,
22:39were removed using rudimentary methods.
22:43This stage of the works was essential
22:46to ensure the stability of the tower.
22:58The first problem came two weeks after work started.
23:01Well-known artists published a petition against the Eiffel Tower.
23:05In the influential daily Le Temps,
23:08under editor and editor-in-chief,
23:11the Eiffel Tower was the first to be built,
23:14and the first to be built in France.
23:17The Eiffel Tower was the first to be built,
23:20and the first to be built in France.
23:23The Eiffel Tower was the first to be built
23:26in the influential daily Le Temps,
23:29under editor Adrien Ebrard.
23:32They protested against the erection
23:35of the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower.
23:50Eiffel's counter-attack was scathing and inspired.
23:54Because we are engineers, do people think
23:57that we are not preoccupied by beauty in our constructions,
24:00and that although we build them sturdy and durable,
24:03we do not also strive to make them elegant?
24:10On site, the works were underway.
24:13The foundations on the banks of the Seine
24:16lay seven metres below river level,
24:19so could easily flood.
24:23How would Eiffel overcome this obstacle?
24:32He called on the know-how he'd acquired
24:3530 years earlier in Bordeaux,
24:38when, as a young engineer fresh out of the École Centrale,
24:41an elite engineering school,
24:44he led the construction of his first major iron structure,
24:47a 504 metre long railway viaduct
24:50linking the two banks of the river Garonne,
24:53which is very wide at that point.
25:03This impressive structure almost disappeared
25:06when the modern bridge rendered it obsolete.
25:09Gustave Eiffel's descendant,
25:12Myriam Lanodi Eiffel,
25:15helped save this iron masterpiece.
25:21Incredible, truly magnificent.
25:31It's the longest iron bridge ever built in France
25:34and still makes the Eiffel family proud.
25:44This bridge, for young Gustave Eiffel,
25:47is the chance of his life.
26:11Eiffel's youthful leadership skills
26:14helped solve this major technical challenge,
26:17digging riverbed foundations for the six pairs of bridge piers.
26:24How could anyone build such massive foundations
26:2710 metres underwater?
26:44The lower part rests on the bed of the river.
26:47The upper part is open-air.
26:50These piers are divided into three compartments.
26:53At the bottom, a pressurized chamber,
26:56constantly supplied with compressed air
26:59to remove the residual water,
27:02where the workers can work on dry feet.
27:05In the middle, a decompression tank
27:08and at the top, an open-air part
27:11This innovative technique of air-compressed foundations
27:14will be crucial for the construction
27:17of the foundations of the Eiffel Tower.
27:20But when the compressed air chambers were used 30 years later
27:23to dig the tower's foundations near the Seine,
27:26workers in the pressurized section experienced problems.
27:31Since the beginning of the use of air-compressed caissons,
27:34workers have developed a new disease,
27:38such as itching, bleeding, difficulty breathing,
27:41partial paralysis of the limbs.
27:44No one understands where this disease comes from
27:47or the importance of the decompression layers
27:50during the workers' recovery.
27:54Press reports led to a public outcry
27:57and once again Eiffel relied on Minister Lecroy
28:00to subdue this new protest.
28:03He summoned the press to the construction site.
28:07The Minister of Commerce decided in April 1887
28:10to go down to the foundations and come back alive.
28:17Work resumed immediately.
28:20Soon, solid foundations were ready to support the metal structure.
28:31The iron elements were cut, trimmed, adjusted and drilled
28:34to the exact measurements set out in the plans.
28:37Once on site, they had to fit together perfectly.
28:45The Eiffel construction method made it possible
28:48to build at an amazing pace.
29:00Six months after the start of construction,
29:03four 54 degree inclined pillars rose from the ground.
29:12There were very few workers on site,
29:15barely 250, but they were very efficient.
29:34They paid almost twice as much as the workers
29:37on other Paris construction sites at the same time.
29:45Progress was impressive.
29:48The metallic structure rising fast
29:51to the incessant beat of the riveter's hammers.
29:55But how were the parts assembled on the building site?
29:59In Gonesse, north of Paris,
30:02one business still employs the efficient riveting assembly process
30:05used by the Eiffel company.
30:14In this workshop, Eiffel-style beams are produced
30:17to restore old structures.
30:28At the time of the tower's construction,
30:31there were no pneumatic tools.
30:34Riveting was carried out on site by teams of four workers.
30:59The first makes the rivet white-hot in abrasive.
31:08The second positions it in the assembly hole.
31:11The third holds the rivet head,
31:14while the fourth hammers it in place.
31:19As it cools, the rivet contracts,
31:22holding the parts firmly together.
31:29A total of 2.5 million rivets were set on the Eiffel Tower,
31:32half of them on site,
31:35sometimes in highly acrobatic and even dangerous conditions.
31:41No lives were lost during the main construction phase of the project,
31:44but one Italian worker, Angelo Scagliotti,
31:47died shortly after the tower's inauguration.
31:51As the structure grew, so did the challenges.
31:54How do you lift thousands of tons of iron
31:57to heights of 100, 200, and then 300 metres?
32:03Eiffel came up with a solution
32:06using mobile steam cranes in each of the tower's legs.
32:11The greatest challenge facing the engineers
32:14was securing horizontal beams to the four sides of the tower.
32:20They needed four inclined legs to create a first-floor platform.
32:28The position of the four 700-tonne pillars
32:31had to be millimetre perfect.
32:50In order to be able to lift the steel beams slightly
32:53and thus catch up with the play
32:56that could occur at the junction of these.
33:00In addition, sandboxes were placed
33:03between the scaffolding and the steel beams,
33:06and to tilt one of these,
33:09it was enough to open the box and empty the sand inside.
33:12By combining sandboxes and hydraulic cranes,
33:15it was possible to precisely adjust
33:18the previously drilled rivet holes
33:21in the beams and in the steel beams,
33:24and thus facilitate the assembly of the first floor.
33:41The tower was standing by itself.
33:44They had done it.
33:48To Eiffel's great relief,
33:51the complex operation was complete.
34:03But January 1888 was a hard month.
34:06Winter slowed down their progress,
34:09and the second and third levels were still to be built.
34:13Another 250 metres were required
34:16to reach the magical 300-metre height.
34:19With only 15 months left,
34:22time was running out.
34:28That same year, another ambitious engineering project
34:31was making headlines in Paris.
34:34There was bad news from Panama,
34:37where French entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps
34:40was digging a canal without locks
34:43to reconnect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
34:49Disaster upon disaster
34:52had left it considerably behind schedule.
35:13There was a meeting of experts
35:16organized by de Lesseps,
35:19and de Lesseps had tricked the meeting
35:22so that the vast majority of experts
35:25said that the level of the canal was favourable,
35:28while Eiffel, with a very small number of other experts,
35:31said that it was impossible
35:34and that a canal had to be built in Écluse.
35:43Ferdinand de Lesseps, who again I emphasize was not an engineer,
35:46was such a failure
35:49and entailed such loss of life,
35:52and as people, you know,
35:55it entailed trying to cut through a mountain,
35:58and that mountain kept having mudslides.
36:01It was a disaster.
36:07Finally, and one billion gold francs later,
36:10the Lesseps version of the canal without locks
36:13had to be abandoned,
36:16and the Panama Interoceanic Company,
36:19the pride of France,
36:22funded by thousands of small investors,
36:25had to be salvaged.
36:28Many saw Eiffel as the man
36:31to turn this disaster into a triumph.
36:34Boosted by progress on the tower,
36:37he began the gigantic civil engineering project of his times.
36:45For the astronomical amount of 100 million francs,
36:48more than 15 times the Eiffel Tower's construction cost,
36:51he was contracted to build 10 giant canal locks.
36:57He agrees to make those locks
37:00at a great cost to Lesseps.
37:03Eiffel will reap great rewards
37:06and he needs those, I believe,
37:09to build the Eiffel Tower.
37:12I believe that the Panama Canal Project
37:15is partly funding the Eiffel Tower itself.
37:24Eiffel had to take charge of the construction site,
37:27direct the gigantic earthworks,
37:30manufacture 20 enormous lock gates
37:33of his own design,
37:36then ship them to Panama
37:39and deliver the work
37:42all before the concession expired in 1890.
37:45He now had two races against the clock.
38:04The Eiffel Company was working at full capacity.
38:10On the 4th of July, 1888,
38:13a party was in full swing on the tower's first level.
38:18Gustave Eiffel had organised a banquet
38:21to celebrate American Independence Day.
38:25The first level of the tower
38:28was decked out with the Eiffel Tower.
38:33It was painted out in the colours of the two nations.
38:38In the middle, a table had been set up
38:41to welcome the press.
38:44Over 40 journalists and foreign correspondents
38:47had made the ascent to the first floor.
38:56But six months before the scheduled completion date,
38:59the site's machinery ground to a halt.
39:02On the 19th of September, 1888,
39:05most of the workers went on strike.
39:33Of the 140 riveters, fitters and carpenters,
39:36only 27 showed up for work.
39:39Construction couldn't continue.
39:45Eiffel quickly did the calculations.
39:48The tower might not be completed in time for the World's Fair.
39:53He met their demands.
39:57By November 1888,
40:00Eiffel and his team were all smiles again.
40:03The tower had become the tallest building on Earth,
40:06170 metres,
40:09one metre higher than the Washington Monument's stone obelisk.
40:16Progress would now be faster.
40:19The structure was thinner and required fewer parts.
40:26One metre was being added every day.
40:31By the 15th of March, 1889,
40:34the third level was almost complete.
40:37But there was still the paintwork to finish
40:40and the lifts to install,
40:43which was turning into a major headache.
40:46The tower's lifts,
40:49a crucial part of the visitor experience,
40:52represented a technological leap forward,
40:55but moving the public to a height of 300 metres
40:58was a new challenge,
41:01and new machinery had to be invented to meet it.
41:04Stéphane Rosec is in charge of the lifts.
41:09His workplace is worthy of a novel by Jules Verne.
41:12The key to producing the energy needed
41:15to raise the lifts to the first
41:18and then the second level is hydraulic pressure.
41:25This hydraulic pressure
41:28pushes an imposing 16-metre-long jack
41:31into the tower's lift.
41:34The jack is the lift's counterweight.
41:37Inside the shaft is water,
41:40and outside the shaft, in the yellow part,
41:43is 180 tonnes of geese.
41:46This weight will exert a force
41:49that will create a pressure of 42 bar on the water.
41:52The jack is an imposing 16-metre-long jack.
41:55In turn, it drives a rail-mounted carriage,
41:58which operates a set of pulleys
42:01that raises the elevated car up to the second level.
42:04When the piston travels one metre,
42:07this system of pulley cables moves the cabin eight metres.
42:15But on 31 March 1889,
42:18the lifts were not ready,
42:21and Jules had to climb the stairs
42:24to raise the French flag.
42:36A few daring climbers
42:39braved the heights to accompany him.
42:43This beautiful open structure
42:46had been completed in record time.
42:49Well, almost.
42:52The lifts were not yet working,
42:55and the paintwork was unfinished.
43:13The Eiffel Tower has received 19 coats of paint
43:16since its construction,
43:19an average of one every seven years,
43:22as prescribed by Gustave Eiffel himself
43:25to protect it from rust.
43:28From one painting campaign to the next,
43:31the tower's colours have changed.
43:34Very bright at the time of the World's Fair,
43:37they have since become much darker.
43:42This idea is completely overwhelming
43:45that the Eiffel Tower is in colour,
43:48but that there is a gradient.
43:51The base of the tower is dark,
43:54the top of the tower is bright.
44:01The tower has been repainted 19 times.
44:06It is now time for a fresh coat.
44:09Pierre-Antoine Gattier is in charge.
44:39The yellow-brown paint is the same colour
44:42chosen by Eiffel in 1907,
44:45when the tower acquired permanent status.
44:58The tower is repainted by rope access,
45:01using tools such as the mop,
45:04an angled brush similar to those
45:07used by the workers.
45:31It takes several years to apply the 60 tonnes of paint
45:35to cover the surface of the tower using this technique.
45:47In Paris, after more than two years
45:50of dizzying construction work,
45:53the big day arrived.
45:56Parisians and visitors flocked into the city.
45:59On 6 May 1889, after a race against the clock,
46:03the French president, Sadi Carnot,
46:06opened the World's Fair with the utmost solemnity.
46:14The triumph of iron was complete.
46:23The World's Fair was then open to the public,
46:26who arrived in droves,
46:29but to a railway line specially built for the occasion.
46:35Contrary to some of the artists' predictions,
46:38the sight was priceless.
46:59The French, who had seen the tower with the wrong eye,
47:02were stunned by the grandeur of the tower.
47:13On the evening of 6 May 1889,
47:16there was a grand celebration,
47:21and the tower unveiled her lights for the first time.
47:29Boats on the Seine were festooned with lanterns.
47:32Orchestras played late into the night.
47:35The special day of inauguration ended
47:38with a suitably festive climax.
47:49The Universal Expo World's Fair was a huge success,
47:52attracting 32 million visitors
47:55between May and October 1889.
47:59Over the same period of time,
48:02Monsieur Eiffel's tower, the undisputed star of the fair,
48:05sold over 2 million tickets,
48:08a resounding success.
48:30But despite Eiffel's star shining so brightly,
48:33the year 1892 turned into a nightmare.
48:42He was caught up in an enormous scandal
48:45that shook French society.
48:48The bankruptcy of the company that built the Panama Canal,
48:51headed by the famous Charles de Lesseps.
48:54Thousands of small investors,
48:57thousands of small investors were ruined.
49:00Some committed suicide.
49:03The scandal revealed the corruption of members of parliament
49:06from every party.
49:09Eiffel too was a suspect.
49:27Given the enormity of the task,
49:30he was considered the true Manitou
49:33of the Panama Canal Company.
49:58The defendants include Charles de Lesseps,
50:01along with his father Ferdinand de Lesseps,
50:04two other company directors and Eiffel.
50:12They had to answer charges of complicity and fraud
50:15and breach of trust.
50:18At first, Eiffel was convinced he would be exonerated.
50:21But a month later,
50:24although defended by a brilliant lawyer,
50:27he was sentenced to two years in prison
50:30and fined 20,000 francs.
50:33He was discredited and his reputation shattered.
50:36For Eiffel, it was a humiliation.
50:51It was a difficult time for him.
50:54It was a very painful time for him.
51:21Transformation projects emerged,
51:24maliciously proposing to turn the tower
51:27into an improbable rock,
51:30or a giant belfry topped by a clock,
51:33or a kind of Mesopotamian ziggurat.
51:36Eiffel dismissed these projects as distortions of his tower.
51:39What he really wanted
51:42was to transform it into a palace of electricity.
51:45The investment would have been enormous,
51:48but the tower would essentially be preserved in its original form.
52:01The 1900 fair was much larger than that of 1889
52:04and its centre was no longer on the Champs-de-Mars,
52:07but closer to Les Invalides
52:10and the Place de la Concorde,
52:13where a spectacular gateway had been placed.
52:19As a result, the tower found itself on the sidelines
52:22and the modernisation work carried out to improve the lifts
52:25and install electricity
52:28was not enough to rekindle public interest.
52:49Once the 1900 World's Fair was over,
52:52ideas emerged to transform the Champs-de-Mars again,
52:55this time into a large park.
53:01Eiffel was worried.
53:04He looked for ways to preserve the tower
53:07and make it a lasting fixture in the Parisian landscape.
53:10It would be the last battle of his life.
53:13With his mind increasingly focused on the tower,
53:17he foresaw the importance of wireless radio,
53:20which required very high antennas.
53:23He understood the role the tower could play
53:26in the development of wireless telegraphy.
53:29In December 1903,
53:32he decided to turn to the army.
53:35His proposal received a cool reception at the ministry,
53:38except from a brilliant young engineer,
53:41Captain Ferrier,
53:45who was looking to develop wireless telegraphy.
53:48Ferrier obtained authorisation from the army
53:51to install a wireless station at the Eiffel Tower.
53:57Gustave Eiffel paid for Hutz
54:00to host a transmitter on the Champs-de-Mars.
54:03The tower was equipped with an extraordinary antenna
54:06made of four steel cables.
54:09This antenna was constantly evolving.
54:12It eventually ended up being rigged with 360-metre cables.
54:17One year before its concession was due to end in 1909,
54:21it had become a strategic tool for national defence.
54:25The tower was saved from destruction
54:28and the concession was extended.
54:35It was a cold day in Paris when Gustave Eiffel died
54:38on 27 December 1923
54:41at the age of 91,
54:44one year after the inauguration of Radio Tour Eiffel.
54:49Le Matin paid him tribute.
54:52A great Frenchman, whose name is famous the world over,
54:55has just died.
55:00Gustave had left his tower without a protector.
55:04A few years later, the Eiffel Tower lost its 41-year record
55:07as the world's tallest building.
55:10In quick succession, two New York skyscrapers overtook it.
55:14The Chrysler Building at 319 metres in 1930,
55:18followed by the famous Empire State Building in 1931,
55:22which topped out at 381 metres.
55:27The Eiffel Tower in so many ways is surpassed by skyscrapers,
55:31the building of taller and taller structures,
55:34especially in the United States.
55:37It's a way that in terms of appreciating its longevity,
55:41one has to understand that what began
55:45as unforeseen modern construction,
55:49so bold, so geometric, so non-figurative,
55:53at some point transforms into
55:57a certain quaintness,
56:01a certain nostalgia for a 19th century
56:04that has been so surpassed by the 20th.
56:08The Eiffel Tower still stands not just for Paris,
56:12but for 19th-century Paris.
56:19Now in the hands of the city of Paris,
56:23this 19th-century monument renews itself constantly
56:27to retain its glamour.
56:30In 1985, 336 sodium lamps
56:34were installed inside the structure.
56:38Then a network of LED bulbs was added
56:42all over the outer surface to create a sparkling effect
56:46that has delighted visitors since the turn of the millennium.
56:53Its nocturnal aura has been further enhanced
56:56in the early 21st century by the installation
57:00of a new beacon that casts a spectacular beam
57:04through the Parisian night sky.
57:09This powerful spotlight no longer signals the tower to aircraft
57:13since the Paris skies have been close to them.
57:17It now shines out over the French capital
57:21and its suburbs for the pleasure of all.
57:27For over 30 years, the brilliant Gustave Eiffel
57:31and his eccentric Iron Lady went through uncertain times,
57:35but together they worked wonders
57:39and have made Paris a magnet for travellers
57:43from all over the world.
57:47During World War I, wireless telegraphy saved France
57:51from defeat by thwarting German attacks.
57:54Nowadays, nothing is too daring for it
57:58to please the crowds on special popular celebrations
58:02like Bastille Day.
58:06A visionary work and the adventure of a lifetime
58:10for its creator, the Eiffel Tower
58:14has never ceased to reinvent itself.
58:24Transcribed by ESO, translated by —
58:54Transcription by ESO, translated by —