How long Did It Take To Build The Eiffel Tower (And Why)?

Exact Answer: 2 Years 2 Months 5 Days

Eiffel Tower is one of the most admired architectures built in the nineteenth century. It is also one of the most easily recognizable structures in the world and it has become the national identity of France. The Eiffel Tower is one of the most visited structures in the world.

Eiffel Tower is named after Gustave Eiffel. It was Gustave Eiffel’s company that was responsible for designing and building the tower. The Eiffel Tower is popularly called “La Dame de Fer” which is french for the Iron Lady. The tower is 1,063 ft tall and ranks as the second-tallest free-standing structure in the nation.

How Long Did It Take To Build The Eiffel Tower?

The idea to build a structure of metal support and polygons that would be above a height of 300 meters was conceived with the registration of a patent about the same on the eighteenth September 1884.

The start of the mounting of the pillars began only after the first of July 1887. All the elements that were needed in the preparation of the Eiffel Tower were manufactured in his factory. Gustave Eiffel’s factory was located at Levallois-Perret in the countryside of the historic Paris city.

For the first level of Eiffel, the joining of girders started on the seventh of December in 1887. The first floor of the tower was completed by the first of April in 1888. The foundations of the tower were completed in a record time of five months.

Moreover, it further took only about five months in getting the second floor of the Eiffel Tower ready. The second floor of the architectural marvel was completed on the 14th of August in 1888. The EiffelTower received its final touch on the 31st of March in 1889.

Why Did It Take That Long To Build The Eiffel Tower?

The construction of the Eiffel Tower was no easy task. It was an enormous and expensive project in itself. There were several causes that led to the construction of the Eiffel Tower taking that long.

First and foremost, numbers speak for themselves. The height of the Eiffel Tower is as high as 1,063 ft tall. Apart from such a great height of the structure, its construction also involved 18,038 metallic parts and more than two million rivets.

Besides these, the construction also involved nearly seven thousand and three hundred tonnes of iron and sixty tonnes of paint. Constructing such a tall structure that involves a great degree of metalwork consumes a great amount of time.

Moreover, the construction of the Eiffel Tower had also faced initial resistance from the scholars and imminent citizens of that time in the nation. This had certainly taken a toll on the attention span of the company.

However, the construction was partly eased due to the large number of labor being employed by the construction company as it gathered momentum. There were more than fifty engineers and designers involved in the construction work. Besides the involvement of nearly a hundred and fifty workers in the factory, there were also nearly two hundred workers at the construction site who helped in speeding up the work.

However, it can be said that the construction of the Eiffel Tower is a work in progress. It is due to various additions being made to the structure like cafe and radio antenna.

Conclusion

Eiffel Tower is the brand ambassador of the French nation, in general, and Paris, in particular, on the global stage. The tall structure still sings the glory of the great engineers and workers produced by the country. It attracts one of the largest tourist populations in the world and adds greatly to the economy of the city.

The construction of the Eiffel Tower took two years two months and five days to complete. It was started on the first of July in 1887 and was completed only after the thirty-first March in 1889.

References

1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0141029616304242
2. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41762314