The Eiffel Tower: State of the Construction 1888 Postcard

Artist Louis-Emile Durandelle (1839–1917) Link back to Creator infobox template Title The Eiffel Tower: State of the Construction Description English: The Centennial Exposition of 1889 was organised by the French government to commemorate the French Revolution. Bridge engineer Gustave Eiffel's 984-foot (300-metre) tower of open-lattice wrought iron was selected in a competition to erect a memorial at the exposition. Twice as high as the dome of St. Peter's in Rome or the Great Pyramid of Giza, nothing like it had ever been built before. This view was made about four months short of the tower's completion. Louis-Émile Durandelle photographed the tower from a low vantage point to emphasize its monumentality. The massive building barely visible in the far distance is dwarfed under the tower's arches. Incidentally, the tower's innovative glass-cage elevators, engineered to ascend on a curve, were designed by the Otis Elevator Company of New York, the same company that designed the Getty Centre's diagonally ascending tram. This work is in the public domain in the United States, and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years or less.