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00:00A majestic presence has towered over Paris for more than 130 years.
00:17A symbol of progress and of breaking boundaries,
00:20France's Iron Lady is a global icon.
00:24In 1889, Gustave Eiffel achieved the impossible.
00:34The dream of every engineer, to build the tallest tower in the world.
00:43In the heart of Paris, he raised this 7,300 tonne iron colossus
00:49in just two years, two months and five days.
00:52But this tower could not have existed without the engineering innovations
00:57of the three preceding decades,
01:00and Gustave Eiffel's other work found all over the world.
01:05From the bridges of Vietnam, to the sweeping Garabi Viaduct,
01:09Bordeaux's rivers, to the secrets of New York's Statue of Liberty,
01:13the Eiffel Tower is the crowning glory of a life spent pushing back limits.
01:18What challenges, both human and technical,
01:22did Eiffel and his engineers face with such a massive project?
01:26And how did his scientific research help Eiffel save the tower from destruction?
01:30This is the epic story of France's Iron Lady.
01:40On 31 March 1889, Gustave Eiffel refused to allow anyone else to unfurl the French flag at the top of his tower.
01:59Aged nearly 60, he faced the ever-changing winds of an icy winter to mark the completion of his greatest masterpiece,
02:12300 metres over Paris.
02:14The Eiffel Tower was born out of the Industrial Revolution.
02:28The age of iron and coal.
02:31The plentiful supply of coal in Great Britain, where everything started at the end of the 18th century, changed the world.
02:38Along with revolutionary inventions like the steam engine, the railway and the steel industry.
02:46One foundation technology of the Industrial Revolution was a type of wrought iron called puddled iron.
02:54Strong yet flexible, it was obtained by melting iron ore and introducing oxygen until it was decarbonised.
03:01In the 1850s, the production of puddled iron boomed with the mechanisation of the blast furnace.
03:10In France, a flurry of forges and metal construction companies emerged.
03:17One of these firms was founded in 1864 by the 32-year-old engineer Gustave Eiffel.
03:25Eiffel compose his own grammar of construction in bringing techniques
03:33whose main elements are the main elements of the Poutre-en-Trey and the Croix of Saint-André.
03:38All this assembled by the rivets.
03:41This allows us to have a more light and lighter construction.
03:47These techniques allow us to quickly build books
03:51and build records of long, height, height and height.
03:56And that's what will allow them to go to the conquest of the world.
04:01Since the beginning of the 19th century,
04:03architects had dreamed of exceeding the Gothic cathedrals and the Egyptian pyramids.
04:09Two projects for 300 meters high towers had emerged in England and the United States,
04:14but neither was completed.
04:17Two prominent engineers from the Eiffel Company, Emile Nouguier and Maurice Kirkland,
04:24were also tempted by the idea of building a 300-meter tower.
04:28But how to go about it?
04:31Using the hallmark iron construction techniques of the Eiffel Company,
04:38Kirkland and Nouguier came up with a pylon design.
04:41Eiffel was not impressed.
04:46For art historian Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby,
04:52the yearning for the gigantic fits the historical context of the 19th century.
04:58Rise of capitalism, rise of empire, rise of nationalist rivalries,
05:04all of that feeds the kind of competition to prove one's modernity, efficiency and capacity to astonish people with the surprises of things like the Eiffel Tower.
05:22It was the in-house architect, Stéphane Sauvest, who won Eiffel over to the project.
05:32Gracing the pylon with decorative arches and adding platforms to welcome the public.
05:38He transformed the unattractive pylon into an elegant monument.
05:43Eiffel saw that a revolutionary tower could be the main attraction of the 1889 World's Fair in Paris and committed himself to the project.
05:57A fabulous 300 metre iron tower from which people could admire the city of Paris.
06:06The Eiffel Tower project was born.
06:11The tower would be higher than Notre Dame, the pyramids of Egypt and almost twice as high as the Washington Monument, which held the world record at 169 metres.
06:24Many feared that at 300 metres, the wind would be destructive.
06:31How 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 laboratory which is still in use.
06:46This is where Benoit Romain, an expert in structural mechanics, is comparing the effect of wind on models of the Eiffel Tower and a tower with straight sides.
06:57Gustave Eiffel Tower
07:12Gustave Eiffel Tower
07:18Why is the Eiffel Tower model much better at resisting wind than the other model?
07:22In the case of the rectiline tower, the wind is perpendicular to the tower and is going to be flinched.
07:29In Eiffel Tower, the wind which is pushing like this will be balanced by compression in one leg and traction in the other.
07:37These two forces will be balanced by wind.
07:40In the case of the Eiffel Tower, the wind is applied all along.
07:42So we need to make these triangles in a continuous way from up to up to down.
07:46This is what gives this shape to Eiffel Tower.
07:48This is the best shape we can imagine to resist the wind.
07:51This is an optimal solution.
07:58One of Eiffel's most impressive earlier achievements is this magnificent railway bridge in Auvergne, in central France.
08:06The Gowerby Viaduct was opened in 1884, just as the project for the Eiffel Tower was being conceived.
08:21Standing 120 metres above the Truyer River, it connects the two sides of the valley with a parabolic arch of unprecedented length.
08:30165 metres, 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.
08:47For the Viaduct de Garabi, the three important parts are the large part, the major part, and then the piles of the large part, and then the metallic table.
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.
09:15The organisational expertise needed on site testifies to the technical know-how and talent of Eiffel's company.
09:24For realising this viaduct, Eiffel has shown a virtue virtue.
09:31In fact, he opted for the innovative technique of launching in port-à-faux,
09:35which consists of building the arches and the tablier from the rives.
09:40The central part of the bridge is made by taking an appui on the existing piles.
09:45A system of cables will then support the two half-arches, which avance through the void,
09:53up to their junction at 120 mètres above the river.
09:57And this requires extreme precision in the realisation of the pieces,
10:01as in the montage, because the screws of the rivet must coincide exactly
10:06at the moment of the junction of the arches.
10:08Eiffel tells himself that they are coming with a pretty mathematical precision.
10:18The perfectly mastered completion of this civil engineering work,
10:22to worldwide admiration, was key to the success of the 300m tower project.
10:27With the Garaby viaduct works behind them, the Eiffel team could now focus on building the highest monument in the world.
10:46In June 1884, Eiffel, Coeurclin, Nuguier and Sauveste exhibited a model at the Decorative Arts Exhibition.
10:54Building a needle in the heart of Paris caught the imagination of the French Minister of Trade,
11:09Edouard Le Croix, who was looking for a revolutionary idea to boost the forthcoming World's Fair in 1889.
11:17Le Croix is also an adventurer.
11:20He participated in the community in 1871.
11:26He is someone who has a very remarkable personality.
11:30What he looks for is something that gives the truth to the Universal Exposition.
11:39What better choice than a record-breaking monument?
11:41monument. The publicity for Paris and the very young Third Republic would be global.
11:52The 300-metre tower would be topped by a beacon, like another monument intended to enlighten
12:03the world, which also owes a lot to Eiffel's genius.
12:17In 1879, Gustave Eiffel was involved in the construction of a remarkable work, Liberty
12:24enlightening the world, which would later become the Statue of Liberty. The sculpture by
12:30Auguste Bartholdi was a gift from the Republic of France to the American people to mark the
12:36centenary of their independence. The tallest statue in the world at 92 metres, including
12:42its pedestal, was another artistic and technical challenge on an unprecedented scale.
12:48What Eiffel propose is a simple pylone of fer, like what we see on its ponts. It is composed
12:57of four arbor-letriers, forming an arrhythmia in poutre-caisson, liaisons by the
13:01contre-ventements and the croix of Saint-André, to ensure the solidity. The engineers of Eiffel,
13:07and particularly Queclin, who made the calculations, have imagined a secondary skeleton, which, by
13:14the intermédiaire of a soft bar, has the fine peau in cuivre, which is the statue.
13:20The statue and its structure crossed the Atlantic in 210 special crates.
13:27Cited at the entrance of New York Harbor, it would become an undisputed symbol of the city.
13:35It is 6 a.m. Before opening to the 20,000 daily visitors, Ranger, Matthew Hoosh, climbs up
13:42into the part of the statue.
13:44This 162-step staircase gives an insight into Eiffel's structure.
13:51The similarities with the tower are clear.
13:52What's most impressive about the interior of the Statue of Liberty is how all of this iron
13:58and steel and steel and steel are built in the interior.
14:01It is 6 a.m. Before opening to the 20,000 daily visitors, Ranger, Matthew Hoosh, climbs up
14:06into the heart of the statue. This 162-step staircase gives an insight into Eiffel's structure.
14:13The tower are clear.
14:14What's most impressive about the interior of the Statue of Liberty is how all of this
14:20iron and steel works together to hold her over 300 feet above New York Harbor.
14:27Over 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.
14:42But what you're seeing are hundreds of copper plates.
14:46So that's the dark metal that you see all along the interior here.
14:50That'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.
15:01So we can see there are thousands of steel bars connect the copper plates
15:05to the secondary iron bars.
15:08And all of those iron bars connect back here to these iron pylons.
15:14The iron structure designed by Eiffel's engineers
15:18accommodates this staircase up to Miss Liberty's crown
15:21and its unique view of New York.
15:28This view became popular over time and as visitors keep coming to the Statue of Liberty,
15:36the Statue of Liberty becomes the Statue of Liberty.
15:39She 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.
16:01Its universal appeal reflected on Gustav Eiffel.
16:08But despite this resounding success, his project for the 300-meter Paris Tower
16:14had stalled for lack of a firm government commitment.
16:20Fortunately, Gustav Eiffel was a shrewd businessman, winning orders in South America,
16:26Portugal, the Philippines and the French colonies of Indochina.
16:31The Eiffel company could afford to wait out the bureaucratic delays of the French government.
16:45It is in Vietnam that Eiffel built the greatest number of structures.
16:50The Pont de Messagerie in Ho Chi Minh City is well known.
16:56But dozens of portable bridges exported by Eiffel to Vietnam are now lost.
17:03The old city once boasted a hundred of them.
17:09The fortuit God хотя complained with the Frenchلip.
17:12This atmosphère festival induces to be granted later, and in this direction
17:13toладцаpe their urbanization of the London City.
17:14This was already a TensorFlow which led out Across herself.
17:15An attractive Southern note of theでは called 100-year-old
17:18Old schoolыш, based in airports, Montar
17:33urbanization have probably destroyed most of Eiffel's portable bridges. But after studying
17:40satellite images of the city, Bertrand Lemoyne is convinced that some of them might still be in use.
18:03It looks a little bit like the rail of the cement.
18:07Yes, these are very simple elements, the U, the I, which are in fact the base of the metallic construction
18:15and they can build these shapes with triangles, which give a great rigidity to the pont.
18:20Well, we can confirm that it's a typical Eiffel, with a 5 travées for about 24 meters.
18:30So it's really extraordinary to find it here.
18:33Another bridge of the same type has been spotted.
18:54It's really a beautiful specimen of a portative Eiffel.
18:59Because we could carry the elements that were pre-fabricated, pre-fabricated with corners,
19:05and assembled by rivets at Paris.
19:08And then these boulons that we have assembled on the place to climb the pont.
19:13And we see this mécano, grand format, and this building, the pont Duraccom,
19:19eh bien subsist encore 140 ans plus tard.
19:24Eiffel va développer l'invention des ponts portatifs à peu près au moment où il conçoit la Tour Eiffel.
19:28Par contre, c'est beaucoup plus simple à conçoire que la Tour Eiffel,
19:31mais c'est vendu, entre guillemets, au même prix.
19:33Donc c'est une véritable manne financière pour l'entreprise,
19:35puisqu'il va vendre ses ponts à l'exportation, un peu partout dans le monde.
19:39Donc c'est une invention simple, mais en réalité qui va se révéler extrêmement lucrative pour l'entreprise Eiffel.
19:45Back in Paris, Gustave Eiffel could count on the unfailing support of the French Minister of Trade.
19:58Édouard Leroy had launched a competition inviting submissions for the 1889 World's Fair.
20:05Among other projects, contestants shall study the possibility of erecting an iron tower on the Champ de Mars.
20:13It's so happened that the specified dimensions were exactly those of Eiffel's design.
20:20Candidates only had 15 days to submit their designs.
20:25Évidemment, une partie de la presse se déchaîne en disant, mais c'est un concours bidon.
20:30On a compris que Monsieur Locroix a choisi la Tour Eiffel,
20:34mais il y a quand même 107 projets qui sont présentés.
20:37Mais c'est finalement, c'était le but du concours, évidemment, de pouvoir dire,
20:41le lauréat, c'est Monsieur Gustave Eiffel.
20:46After months of struggle, Eiffel had won.
20:49He would have his tower, and he would finance it himself.
20:53Eiffel a proposé une concession de 10 ans pour rentrer dans ses dépenses,
21:01et puis prudemment, il pousse à 20 ans, et c'est la durée qui va être acceptée.
21:07La Tour est construite pour une durée de 20 ans, et au bout de 20 ans, elle est censée être démontée.
21:14At the company's headquarters, in Le Valois-Perez,
21:24engineers and draftsmen feverishly started work.
21:28The World's Fair would open on the 6th of May, 1889,
21:32giving them two years and two months to build the tower.
21:35The countdown had begun.
21:44Every part of the tower was calculated to one-tenth of a millimetre.
21:49More than 5,000 drawings were produced by this office.
21:547,300 tonnes of iron were ordered,
21:58and barely 20 days after the concession was signed,
22:01on the 27th of January, 1887,
22:04the first earthworks began,
22:06on the vast, cleared expanse of the Champs de Mars.
22:13Using shovels and pickaxes,
22:15400 workers laboured for nine hours a day
22:19to dig four huge holes.
22:21Rubble was disposed of in wheelbarrows,
22:24horse-drawn carts and mine carts.
22:27The four legs of the tower had to be anchored deep in the ground.
22:3131,000 cubic metres of earth,
22:34a volume equivalent to ten Olympic-sized swimming pools,
22:38were removed using rudimentary methods.
22:42This stage of the works was essential
22:45to ensure the stability of the tower.
22:48The tower Eiffel weighs about 7,500 tonnes for its structure,
22:51a little more, with the ascenseurs
22:53and what we built on top of it.
22:55It's not very heavy, but still,
22:56the tower Eiffel needs to rest
22:59on what we call the good soil,
23:00that is, the soil sufficiently stable
23:02to receive the weight.
23:04And for that, we need to dig 10, 15, 20 metres
23:07even to go look at the stable ground
23:10on which we will build massages of maçonneries.
23:14The first problem came two weeks after work started.
23:19Well-known artists published a petition
23:22against the Eiffel Tower
23:24in the influential daily Le Temps
23:26under editor Adrien Ebrard.
23:29They protested against the erection
23:31of the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower.
23:34What does Ebrard?
23:36They communicate it to La Croix
23:38and they communicate it to Eiffel.
23:41They ask each other
23:44to make a response
23:45that they will publish
23:46in the same time as the protestation.
23:48Eiffel's counterattack was scathing and inspired.
23:53Because we are engineers,
23:55do people think that we are not preoccupied
23:57by beauty in our constructions?
23:59And that although we build them sturdy and durable,
24:02we do not also strive to make them elegant?
24:09On site, the works were underway.
24:12The foundations on the banks of the Seine
24:15lay seven metres below river level
24:18so could easily flood.
24:23How would Eiffel overcome this obstacle?
24:26He called on the know-how he'd acquired
24:35thirty years earlier in Bordeaux
24:37when, as a young engineer,
24:39fresh out of the École Centrale,
24:41an elite engineering school,
24:43he led the construction
24:44of 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.
24:56This impressive structure almost disappeared
25:06when the modern bridge rendered it obsolete.
25:09Gustave Eiffel's descendant,
25:11Miriam Leonody Eiffel,
25:13helped save this iron masterpiece.
25:21Incroyable.
25:23Magnifique.
25:26It's the longest iron bridge ever built in France,
25:30and still makes the Eiffel family proud.
25:35This passerelle, for the young Gustave Eiffel,
25:46is the chance of his life.
25:48He has to do it very quickly.
25:49He is in competition.
25:50He knows it.
25:51With another engineer,
25:52who built a building in Strasbourg,
25:53you have to do better,
25:54more quickly, less expensive.
25:55He will make a little more gross.
25:56At the very beginning,
25:57he will lose some쪽
26:14this major technical challenge, digging riverbed foundations for the six pairs of bridge piers.
26:24How could anyone build such massive foundations 10 meters underwater?
26:44The lower part rests on the floor, the upper part is free.
26:49These caissons are divided in three compartments.
26:52In the bottom, a pressurized room constantly filled in air
26:57to chase the residual water, where the workers can work on the ground.
27:03In the middle, a sas of decompression, and in the bottom, a part free area, where we can evacuate the gravats.
27:11This innovative technology of compressed air foundations will be determined
27:17for the construction of the foundations of the Eiffel Tower.
27:20But when the compressed air chambers were used 30 years later to dig the tower's foundations near the Seine,
27:27workers in the pressurized section experienced problems.
27:30Dès le début de l'usage des caissons à air comprimés, les ouvriers développent une nouvelle maladie.
27:38Piquetement, saignement, difficulté à respirer, paralysie partielle des membres.
27:44Personne ne comprend d'où vient ce mal, ni l'importance des seuils de décompression lors de la remontée des ouvriers.
27:55Press reports led to a public outcry, and once again Eiffel relied on Minister Le Croix
28:01to subdue this new protest. He summoned the press to the construction site.
28:17Work resumed immediately. Soon, solid foundations were ready to support the metal structure.
28:24The iron elements were cut, trimmed, adjusted and drilled to the exact measurements set out in the plans.
28:38Once on site, they had to fit together perfectly.
28:45The Eiffel construction method made it possible to build at an amazing pace.
28:50Six months after the start of construction, four 54 degree inclined pillars rose from the ground.
29:07There were very few workers on site, barely 250, but they were very efficient.
29:18In the winter, they have a day of 9 hours. In the winter, they have a day of 12 hours of work.
29:30In often rough conditions, they are paid two times more than the workers on other parisiers at the same time.
29:39Progress was impressive, the metallic structure rising fast to the incessant beat of the riveter's hammers.
29:55But how were the parts assembled on the building site?
29:58In Gonesse, north of Paris, one business still employs the efficient,
30:06riveting assembly process used by the Eiffel company.
30:17In this workshop, Eiffel-style beams are produced to restore old structures.
30:21Eiffel-style beams are produced to restore old structures.
30:42At the time of the tower's construction, there were no pneumatic tools.
30:51Riveting was carried out on site by teams of four workers.
31:00The first makes the rivet white hot in a brazier.
31:03The second positions it in the assembly hole.
31:12The third holds the rivet head, while the fourth hammers it in place.
31:20As it cools, the rivet contracts, holding the parts firmly together.
31:24A total of two and a half million rivets were set on the Eiffel Tower.
31:34Half of them on site, sometimes in highly acrobatic and even dangerous conditions.
31:41No lives were lost during the main construction phase of the project.
31:45But one Italian worker, Angelo Scaliotti, died shortly after the tower's inauguration.
31:55As the structure grew, so did the challenges.
31:59How do you lift thousands of tons of iron to heights of 100, 200 and then 300 meters?
32:07Eiffel came up with a solution using mobile steam cranes in each of the tower's legs.
32:15The greatest challenge facing the engineers was securing horizontal beams to the four
32:20inclined legs to create a first floor platform.
32:28The position of the four 700-ton pillars had to be millimeter perfect.
32:32Deux dispositifs ont été utilisés par Eiffel, des boîtes à sable, une technique ancienne
32:39déjà utilisée par les Égyptiens, et des vérins hydrauliques placés à la base des piliers.
32:45En effet, deux des piles ont été dotés de vérins hydrauliques de 800 tonnes de force, de façon à pouvoir
32:51soulever légèrement les arbalétriers et donc venir rattraper le jeu qu'il pouvait y avoir
32:58à la jonction de ceux-ci. En complément, des boîtes à sable ont été interposées entre les
33:04échafaudages et les arbalétriers et pour incliner l'un de ceux-ci, il suffisait d'ouvrir la
33:09boîte et de vider le sable à l'intérieur. En combinant boîte à sable et vérins hydrauliques, on
33:17pouvait donc ajuster très précisément les trous de rivets préalablement percés dans les poutres et dans les
33:23arbres à l'étrier et donc faciliter l'assemblage du premier étage.
33:41The tower was standing by itself. They had done it.
33:45To Eiffel's great relief, the complex operation was complete.
34:04But January 1888 was a hard month. Winter slowed down their progress and the second and third levels
34:11were still to be built. Another 250 metres were required to reach the magical 300 metre height.
34:20With only 15 months left, time was running out.
34:29That same year, another ambitious engineering project was making headlines in Paris.
34:35There was bad news from Panama, where French entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps
34:40was digging a canal without locks to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
34:50Disaster upon disaster had left it considerably behind schedule.
34:54Eiffel, depuis longtemps, voulait une revanche sur la façon dont il avait été insulté par Ferdinand de Lesseps
35:09au moment de la conception du canal de Panama. Il y avait eu une réunion d'experts qui avait été organisée par de Lesseps
35:16et de Lesseps avait truqué la réunion pour que l'immense majorité des experts disent que le canal à niveau était favorable.
35:25Alors que Eiffel, avec un tout petit nombre d'autres experts, disait que c'était impossible et qu'il faudrait faire un canal à écluse.
35:35Le Panama Canal du Banal des Lesseps, qui, je vous enfatisais, n'était pas un engineer pour l'internation.
35:47Il était un défi et un défi et un défi et un défi.
35:52Et, vous savez, les gens, vous savez, c'était un défi.
35:56Et l'apportait de l'internité.
35:58Et c'était un défi.
36:00mudslides. It was a disaster.
36:07Finally, and one billion gold francs later, the Lesseps version
36:12of the canal without locks had to be abandoned. And the Panama
36:16Interoceanic Company, the Pride of France, funded by thousands
36:20of small investors, had to be salvaged.
36:23Many saw Eiffel as the man to turn this disaster into a triumph.
36:31Boosted by progress on the tower, Eiffel agreed to take on the
36:36most gigantic civil engineering project of his times.
36:43For the astronomical amount of 100 million francs, more than 15
36:48times the Eiffel Tower's construction cost, he was contracted to
36:52build 10 giant canal locks.
36:56He agrees to make those locks at a great cost to Lesseps.
37:03Eiffel will reap great rewards and he needs those, I believe,
37:09to build the Eiffel Tower. I believe that the Panama Canal
37:14project is partly funding the Eiffel Tower itself.
37:18Eiffel had to take charge of the construction site, direct the
37:28gigantic earthworks, manufacture 20 enormous lock gates of his own
37:34design, then ship them to Panama and deliver the work all before
37:40the concession expired in 1890.
37:46He now had two races against the clock.
37:49The contract with the company of the Panama Canal is 100 millions.
37:54Now Eiffel, on these 100 millions, has received 73 millions.
37:59The calculations were made by the comptables experts at the time.
38:03There were audits.
38:04The Eiffel was working at full capacity.
38:13On the 4th of July, 1888, a party was in full swing on the Tower's
38:20first level.
38:21Gustav Eiffel had organised a banquet to celebrate American Independence Day.
38:28The first level of the Tower was decked out in the colours of the two nations.
38:34In the middle, a table had been set up to welcome the press.
38:43Over 40 journalists and foreign correspondents had made the ascent to the first floor.
38:49But six months before the scheduled completion date, the site's machinery ground to a halt.
39:02On the 19th of September, 1888, most of the workers went on strike.
39:07First, they just had a very hot summer.
39:10And they went up more and more.
39:12Face to this argument about the danger of the road, Eiffel said that there is no danger
39:19at 300 meters than there are at 40 meters.
39:22They asked the workers to take the work again,
39:26in the pain of being thanked if they did not point until tomorrow.
39:35Of the 140 riveters, fitters and carpenters, only 27 showed up for work.
39:41Construction couldn't continue.
39:46Eiffel quickly did the calculations.
39:48The Tower might not be completed in time for the World's Fair.
39:55He met their demands.
40:00By November 1888, Eiffel and his team were all smiles again.
40:05The Tower had become the tallest building on earth, 170 meters,
40:10one meter higher than the Washington Monument's stone obelisk.
40:18Progress would now be faster.
40:20The structure was thinner and required fewer parts.
40:26One meter was being added every day.
40:28By the 15th of March 1889, the third level was almost complete.
40:35But there was still the paintwork to finish and the lifts to install,
40:40which was turning into a major headache.
40:46The Tower's lifts, a crucial part of the visitor experience,
40:49represented a technological leap forward.
40:54Transporting the public to a height of 300 meters was a new challenge,
40:58and new machinery had to be invented to meet it.
41:04Stefan Rozek is in charge of the lifts.
41:08His workplace is worthy of a novel by Jules Verne.
41:11The key to producing the energy needed to raise the lifts to the first,
41:17and then the second level, is hydraulic pressure.
41:21In 1989, it was already under pressure
41:24that was put in place for the displacement of the ascenseurs.
41:30The vertical terrain is the weight of the ascenseur.
41:33So, in the interior of the wall, there is water.
41:36In the interior of the wall, in the yellow part,
41:38there is 180 tons of geuses.
41:40So, this weight will exert a force
41:43that will create a pressure of 42 bars on the water.
41:49This hydraulic pressure pushes an imposing 16-metre-long jack.
41:55In turn, it drives a rail-mounted carriage,
41:58which operates a set of pulleys
42:00that raises the elevated car up to the second level.
42:04When the piston travels one metre,
42:06this system of pulley cables moves the cabin eight metres.
42:10This is the first time.
42:15But on the 31st of March, 1889, the lifts were not ready,
42:19and Gustave Eiffel had to climb the stairs to raise the French flag.
42:24A few daring climbers braved the heights to accompany him.
42:38This beautiful open structure had been completed in record time.
42:53Well, almost.
42:57The lifts were not yet working, and the paintwork was unfinished.
43:04The Eiffel Tower has received 19 coats of paint since its construction,
43:20an average of one every seven years, as prescribed by Gustave Eiffel himself,
43:25to protect it from rust.
43:27From one painting campaign to the next, the tower's colours have changed.
43:32Very bright at the time of the World's Fair, they have since become much darker.
43:37The tower has been repainted 19 times.
43:38The tower has been repainted 19 times.
43:44It is now time for a fresh coat.
43:47Pierre-Antoine Gatier is in charge.
43:51The 20th painting campaign is exceptional.
43:52It is now time for a fresh coat.
43:53Pierre-Antoine Gatier is in charge.
43:58The 20th painting campaign is exceptional.
44:06It is now time for a fresh coat.
44:12First of all, it respects the dream of Gustave Eiffel.
44:23It respects the history of a painting every seven years.
44:27But this campaign is new because we have been able to change the colour,
44:32to find the colours chosen by Gustave Eiffel.
44:37The yellow-brown paint is the same colour chosen by Eiffel in 1907,
44:44when the tower acquired permanent status.
44:58The tower is repainted by rope axes, using tools such as the mop,
45:02an angled brush similar to those originally used by the Eiffel company workers.
45:09We apply this type of painting, which is specially created for Eiffel.
45:19It is a little liquid and is made expressly so that it enters well in the fissures.
45:23We use this type of guipon to apply the painting and access to the angles.
45:29It takes several years to apply the 60 tonnes of paint to cover the surface of the tower using this technique.
45:47In Paris, after more than two years of dizzying construction work, the big day arrived.
45:53Parisians and visitors flocked into the city.
45:58On the 6th of May 1889, after a race against the clock,
46:02the French President, Sadi Carnot, opened the World's Fair with the utmost solemnity.
46:08The triumph of iron was complete.
46:14The World's Fair was then open to the public, who arrived in droves, thanks in part to a railway line specially built for the occasion.
46:32Contrary to some of the artists' predictions, the sight was priceless.
46:39On the 6th of May 1889, after the inauguration of the tower, the foreigners flocked.
46:52And the Anglers, like the Americans, and the Germans, who are the enemy juror of France,
46:58who had seen this tour with a bad eye to see this tour with a bad eye.
47:01They were all embossed by the greatness of this tour.
47:05On the evening of the 6th of May 1889, there was a grand celebration.
47:18And 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 with a suitably festive climax.
47:49The Universal Expo World's Fair was a huge success, attracting 32 million visitors between May and October 1889.
47:59Over the same period of time, Monsieur Eiffel's tower, the undisputed star of the fair, sold over 2 million tickets.
48:08A resounding success.
48:11The Eiffel Tower had collected 6 million recettes during the only duration of the exhibition in 1889,
48:20which was a little higher than the expectations that Eiffel had made.
48:25So, he won in this operation.
48:28But despite Eiffel's star shining so brightly, the year 1892 turned into a nightmare.
48:40He was caught up in an enormous scandal that shook French society.
48:48The bankruptcy of the company that built the Panama Canal, headed by the famous Charles de Lesseps.
48:55Thousands of small investors were ruined, some committed suicide.
49:02The scandal revealed the corruption of members of parliament from every party.
49:07Eiffel, too, was a suspect.
49:10Eiffel Tower was accused of being a mandate of the fact.
49:14Eiffel, too, that he acted like he was an administrator of the company of the Canal Company.
49:20Eiffel, obviously, he defends himself. He never been an administrator.
49:24But, in reality, it was because of the enormous amount of the task that he was involved in,
49:31that we consider that it was the real Manitou, if I can say, of the company of the Canal Company.
49:38On the 10th of January, after a two-year investigation, the trial of the directors of the Panama Interoceanic Company opened in Paris.
49:53Facing the judges at the higher appeals court, the defendants include Charles de Lesseps, along with his father Ferdinand de Lesseps, two other company directors, and Eiffel.
50:13They had to answer charges of complicity and fraud and breach of trust.
50:18At first, Eiffel was convinced he would be exonerated.
50:25But a month later, although defended by a brilliant lawyer, he was sentenced to two years in prison and fined 20,000 francs.
50:34He was discredited and his reputation shattered. For Eiffel, it was a humiliation.
50:40L'affaire de Panama est une véritable césure dans sa vie et dans sa carrière.
50:46Dans sa vie, parce que cette affaire l'humilie et le fait souffrir, le met en difficulté.
50:53Donc, ça va être vraiment une période très douloureuse pour lui.
51:01The tower was also going through a rough patch. Visitors were deserting it, and the scandal didn't help.
51:08What would become of the monument as the date approached for the World's Fair in 1900, also taking place in Paris?
51:21Transformation projects emerged, maliciously proposing to turn the tower into an improbable rock, or a giant belfry topped by a clock, or a kind of Mesopotamian ziggurat.
51:33Eiffel dismissed these projects as distortions of his tower.
51:37What he really wanted was to transform it into a palace of electricity.
51:43The investment would have been enormous, but the tower would essentially be preserved in its original form.
51:51The 1900 fair was much larger than that of 1889, and its centre was no longer on the Champs de Mars, but closer to Les Invalides and the Place de la Concorde, where a spectacular gateway had been placed.
52:14As a result, the tower found itself on the sidelines, and the modernisation work carried out to improve the lifts and install electricity was not enough to rekindle public interest.
52:30In 1900, the most attractive monuments for the public is the Palais de l'Electricité, the Grand Palais, which is the Beaux-Arts, and the Petit Palais, which is the French Art.
52:44These monuments are characterized by the return of the pierre.
52:48So the tower had almost anachronical side in 1900.
52:53Once the 1900 World's Fair was over, ideas emerged to transform the Champs de Mars again, this time into a large park.
53:02Eiffel was worried.
53:06He looked for ways to preserve the tower and make it a lasting fixture in the Parisian landscape.
53:12It would be the last battle of his life.
53:15With his mind increasingly focused on science, he foresaw the importance of wireless radio, which required very high antennas.
53:25He understood the role the tower could play in the development of wireless telegraphy.
53:32In December 1903, he decided to turn to the army.
53:37His proposal received a cool reception at the ministry, except from a brilliant young engineer, Captain Ferrier, who was looking to develop wireless telegraphy.
53:48Ferrier obtained authorisation from the army to install a wireless station at the Eiffel Tower.
53:55Gustave Eiffel paid for huts to host a transmitter on the Champs de Mars.
54:02The tower was equipped with an extraordinary antenna made of four steel cables.
54:07This antenna was constantly evolving.
54:10The Iron Lady ended up being rigged with 360-metre cables.
54:15One year before its concession was due to end in 1909, it had become a strategic tool for national defence.
54:24The tower was saved from destruction and the concession was extended.
54:31It was a cold day in Paris when Gustave Eiffel died on 27 December 1923 at the age of 91, one year after the inauguration of Radio Tour Eiffel.
54:46Le Matin paid him tribute.
54:49A great Frenchman, whose name is famous the world over, has just died.
54:55Gustave had left his tower without a protector.
55:01A few years later, the Eiffel Tower lost its 41-year record as the world's tallest building.
55:10In quick succession, two New York skyscrapers overtook it.
55:14The Chrysler Building at 319 metres in 1930, followed by the famous Empire State Building in 1931, which topped out at 381 metres.
55:26The Eiffel Tower, in so many ways, is surpassed by skyscrapers, the building of taller and taller structures, especially in the United States.
55:35And I think there's a way that in terms of appreciating its longevity, one has to understand that what began as unforeseen modern construction, so bold, so geometric, so non-figurative,
55:53at some point transforms into a certain quaintness, a certain nostalgia for a 19th century that has been so surpassed by the 20th.
56:08The Eiffel Tower still stands not just for Paris, but for 19th century Paris.
56:15Now in the hands of the city of Paris, this 19th century monument renews itself constantly to retain its glamour.
56:30In 1985, 336 sodium lamps were installed inside the structure.
56:37Then a network of LED bulbs was added all over the outer surface to create a sparkling effect that has delighted visitors since the turn of the millennium.
56:49It's nocturnal aura has been further enhanced in the early 21st century by the installation of a new beacon that casts a spectacular beam through the Parisian night sky.
57:05This powerful spotlight no longer signals the tower to aircraft since the Paris skies have been close to them.
57:17It now shines out over the French capital and its suburbs for the pleasure of all.
57:23For over 30 years, the brilliant Gustave Eiffel and his eccentric Iron Lady went through uncertain times.
57:39But together they worked wonders and have made Paris a magnet for travellers from all over the world.
57:46During World War I, wireless telegraphy saved France from defeat by thwarting German attacks.
57:58Nowadays, nothing is too daring for it to please the crowds on special popular celebrations like Bastille Day.
58:07A visionary work and the adventure of a lifetime for its creator,
58:12the Eiffel Tower, the Eiffel Tower has never ceased to reinvent itself.
58:42salahni G
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