I did a PUG entry some time ago featuring the Eiffel Tower: http://pug.komkon.org/00sep/00sept/Et1.html
On 3/31/06, Tom C <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Viewpoints towards art and artists change... Interesting short from "The > Writer's Almanac": > > Today is the anniversary of the official opening of the Eiffel Tower in > Paris (1889). It was built for the International Exhibition of Paris, > commemorating the centenary of the French Revolution. At the time, it was > the tallest structure ever built, at 1,000 feet. The architect Gustave > Eiffel was a specialist in bridges and the design for the Eiffel Tower was > based on his previous bridge designs. He chose to leave the tower's skeletal > structure exposed because it was the easiest way to protect it from wind > resistance. > > When it was finished many Parisians thought it was horribly ugly. Artists > and writers wrote a letter of protest, calling the tower a "truly tragic > street lamp," a "mast of iron gymnasium apparatus, incomplete, confused and > deformed." > > The writer Guy de Maupassant described the Eiffel Tower as, "A high and > skinny pyramid of iron ladders, [a] giant ungainly skeleton upon a base that > looks built to carry a colossal monument of Cyclops, but which just peters > out into a ridiculous thin shape like a factory chimney." He hated the tower > so much that he started eating in its restaurant every day, because, he > said, "It is the only place in Paris where I don't have to see it." > > It was almost torn down in 1909, after the expiration of its lease, but the > city saved it because its antenna was so useful for the new invention of > radio. It's now the most widely recognized symbol of Paris. > > Tom C.
