View allAll Photos Tagged polytechnique
Si vous en avez l’occasion visionnée ce diorama vous comprendrez mon
désappointement du résultat ici présenté. Je n'ai trouvé qu'une gravure
de 1836 correspondant à ce kiosque a musiqué intégrer dans un grand jardin probablement d'un restaurant.
Je ne pense pas que le diorama puisse être d'avant 1900,
la photo employée est peut-être antérieure.
Le militaire deux fois décoré, lui aussi pose problème :
impossible de trouver un uniforme avec bicorne et une seule rangée de boutons devant, polytechnique, marine ou autres ont tous deux rangés de boutons....
Juste trouvé l'équivalent dans « l'armée Française », sans plus de renseignement, sauf que les culottes étaient rouges évidements et surtout avec une rayure dorée sur le côté.
On ne voit pas son pantalon sur la stéréo...
Ça énerve !
Pour apprécier ce diorama au stéréoscope, il m'a fallu enlever la couche de papier blanc assez épais qui empêchait la diffusion de la lumière.
Et croyez-moi avant de hurler à la manipulation/amputation
d'un original... le diorama, c’est vraiment révélé alors !
Bon le choix de mettre des points de couleurs dans des arbustes...
La colorisation est assez pauvre, des aplats de couleurs unis... Cela n'aide pas non plus, surtout sur le premier plan avec toutes ces chaises vides qui se retrouve entre deux coups de pinceau de couleurs opposées !
L'anaglyphe du coup assez médiocre en effet alors que le rendu réel de l'image est bien plus intéressant, avec encore une fois cet enchevêtrement de dos de chaises métalliques.
L'emploi de papier transparent et coloré est particulièrement étonnant et on imagine le travaille dans les arbustes.
Cette technique réservée d'habitude à des
rangées de fenêtres ou d'éclairages urbains pas toujours du meilleur effet. (la surcouche du collage en bande coloré n’était plus translucide ! )
Ce qui explique peut-être l'emploi de ce papier protecteur très épais ?
Aucune idée de la manipulation pour coller ces « confettis » colorés.
À cette époque la 3M n'était encore qu'une mine...
Aucune trace de colle ou de vernis !
Sur les dioramas d'avant 1870, les perçages
étaient colorés par point au pinceau ou autres et sans bavure ou coulures!!
Jamais rien lu de sérieux sur la fabrication de diorama, pochoir oui, etc.
Mais il y a tellement d'interrogations et de possibilités !
Cela énerve !
If you have the opportunity viewed this diorama you will understand my
disappointment of the result presented here.
I found only one engraving
of 1836 corresponding to this musical kiosk integrated into a large
garden probably of a restaurant.
I don’t think the diorama
may be pre-1900, the photo used may be earlier.
The two-time decorated soldier, too, poses a problem: impossible to
find a uniform with a bicorn and a single row of buttons
front, polytechnic, marine or other have both rows of
buttons.
Just found the equivalent in «the French army», without more than
information, except that the panties were obviously red and
especially with a golden stripe on the side.
You don’t see his pants on the stereo...
It’s annoying!
To appreciate this diorama with stereoscope I had to remove the layer
of thick white paper that prevented the spread of the
light.
And believe me before you scream at manipulation/amputation
of an original...the diorama is really revealed then!
Good choice to put color dots in shrubs...
The colorization is rather poor, flat plain colors...
This does not help not either, especially in the foreground with all those empty chairs
who finds himself between two brush strokes of opposite colors!
The anaglyph of the blow rather mediocre indeed while the real rendering
image is much more interesting, with once again this
metal chair back tangle.
Use of paper transparent and colorful is particularly amazing and one imagines the
works in shrubs. This technique is usually reserved for
rows of windows or urban lights not always the best
effect. ( the coating of the coloured tape was no longer translucent ! )
Which may explain the use of this very thick protective paper?
No idea of the manipulation to stick these colored «confetti».
At that time the 3M was still only a mine...
No trace of glue or varnish !
On pre-1870 dioramas, piercings
were point-coloured with a brush or other and not smudged, or
drips!
Never read anything serious about the manufacture of diorama, stencil yes
etc. But there are so many questions and possibilities!
This is so annoying!
Rue Monge | Rue Larrey 17/07/2016 09h24
Just an unhealthy detail of a street corner in the 5ème arrondissement of Paris. Tabac Monge on the corner of the Rue Larrey with Place Monge at the other side of the street. On Place Monge is a market on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays from 7h00 till 15h00.
Rue Monge
Rue Monge is a street in the 5ème arrondissement in the quartiers Saint-Victor and Jardin des Plantes. It has a length of 1260 meters and a width of 20 meters. Starting at boulevard Saint-Germain and ending at avenue des Gobelins.
The path was traced by Theodore Vacquer in 1860 by absorbing a portion of the Rue Saint-Victor. During 1869 works were unearthed the long-sought remains of des arènes de Lutèce. The street is named after Gaspard Monge (1746-1818), French mathematician, one of the founders of the Ecole Polytechnique.
By métro Rue Monge is easily accessible by métro line 7 (Censier – Daubenton and Place Monge) and 10 ( Cardinal Lemoine and Maubert - Mutualité) and bus lines 27, 47 and 86.
[ Source: Wikipedia - Rue Monge ]
Maker: Michel Berthaud (1845-1912)
Born: France
Active: France
Medium: phototypie - Berthaud process
Size: 10 1/2 x 14 in
Location: Paris
Object No. 2022.727
Shelf: A-49
Publication:
Other Collections:
Provenance:
Notes: "Observatoire de Paris - Cours d'Astronomie, Pl. 10.
École Polytechnique. Portefeuille des Élèves." "Diamètre de l'objectif 0m1. Distance focale 2m40" . 9, rue Cadet, Paris.
To view our archive organized by themes and subjects, visit: OUR COLLECTIONS
For information about reproducing this image, visit: THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY ARCHIVE
Rue des Carmes 20/06/2018 11h03
Rue des Carmes in the 5èm arrondissement of Paris. At the end the side face of the Panthéon, the neo-classical mausoleum containing the remains of distinguished French citizens.
Rue des Carmes
Rue des Carmes is a street in the 5ème arrondissement of Paris in the quartier Saint-Victor. The street has a length of 208 meters and a width of 12 meters. Starts at boulevard Saint-Germain and ends at rue de l'École-Polytechnique, rue de Lanneau.
More information: Wikipedia - Rue des Carmes
Photo interview Polytechnique Insights Bastien Nay
Crédit photographique : © École polytechnique - J.Barande
Jean Paul Riopelle began his career at the école polytechnique in 1941, pursuing engineering with some architecture and photography. His childhood enthusiasm for making art became a hobby at this time, and he described himself as a Sunday painter with a constrained, academic style. In 1942 he enrolled at the école des Beaux-Arts in Montreal but shifted his studies to the much less academic approach at the école du Meuble, graduating in 1945. There he studied with Paul-émile Borduas, a teacher who was extremely dedicated to his students and gave them a great deal of freedom. It was under Borduas's direction that Riopelle made his first abstract painting. Borduas and several of his students, including Riopelle, formed a group that worked, socialized and exhibited together (1942-45). The group became known as the Automatistes for their spontaneous method of painting, which drew on the subconscious as a source. In 1946 Riopelle first travelled to France, where he would return and settle the following year. In 1948 Borduas authored the manifesto Refus global, which was signed by a number of his students, including Riopelle.
Riopelle had his first solo exhibition at the Surrealist meeting place, Galerie La Dragonne in Paris, in 1949. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, he met and became friends with artists, writers and gallery owners including Georges Mathieu and Pierre Loeb, who introduced him to André Breton. He also met Jean Arp and Antonin Artaud at Loeb's gallery.
Riopelle pioneered a style of painting where large quantities of varied coloured paints were thickly applied to the canvas with a trowel for such works as Pavane (1954) and The Wheel II (1956). The coming years brought Riopelle increasing success and immersion in the Parisian cultural scene. He was represented in New York and participated in the biennials of contemporary art in Venice (1954) and Sao Paulo (1955). He spent his evenings in Paris bistros with friends including playwright Samuel Beckett and artist Alberto Giacometti.
In the 1960s, Riopelle renewed his ties to Canada. Exhibitions were held at the National Gallery of Canada (1963), and the Musée du Quebec held a retrospective in 1967. In the early 1970s, he built a home and studio in the Laurentians. From 1974 he divided his time between St. Marguerite in Quebec, and Saint-Cyr-en-Arthies in France. Riopelle participated in his last exhibition in 1996. From 1994 until his death, he maintained homes in both St. Marguerite and Isle-aux-Grues, Quebec.
The Rolex Learning Centre ("EPFL Learning Centre") is the campus hub and library for the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), in Lausanne, Switzerland. Designed by the winners of 2010 Pritzker Prize, Japanese-duo SANAA, it opened on 22 February 2010.
Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, partners of the Tokyo-based design firm SANAA, were selected as the lead architects in EPFL's international competition of December 2004. The team was selected among famous architects and even some Pritzker Prize Laureates such as Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Jean Nouvel, Herzog & de Meuron, Ábalos & Herreros and Xaveer De Geyter.
The construction took place between 2007 and 2009. It cost 110 million Swiss francs and was funded by the Swiss government as well as by private sponsors (Rolex, Logitech, Bouygues Construction, Crédit Suisse, Nestlé, Novartis and SICPA).
The building opened on 22 February 2010 and was inaugurated on 27 May 2010. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolex_Learning_Center
Taken at the Rolex Learning Center, on the campus of the "Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne" (EPFL), Lausanne.
The Canadian flag on the Peace Tower flies at half staff in memory of the 14 women who were murdered by Marc Lépine at École Polytechnique in Montreal on December 6 1989.
From the Winnipeg Evening Tribune, September 11th, 1915. Archived in the University of Manitoba Libraries, Digital Collections. Posted here on the 30th anniversary of the École Polytechnique massacre. We have come a long way, we have a long way to go. We Must Not Forget.
Passage des Boeufs 20/06/2018 11h04
Passage des Boeufs is a small passage that ends up in the Rue des Carmes in the 5ème arrondissement of Paris.
Passage des Boeufs
Passage des Boeufs is a little road in the 5ème arrondissement of Paris in the quartier Sorbonne. It has a length of 57 meters and a width of 8 meters. It starts at the rue de l'École-Polytechnique and has a dead end (impasse!).
More informations 'en français': Wikipedia - Impasse des Boeufs
www.la-lente.com.au/photography-galleries/amazing-places/
Travelling Through Europe The Latin Quarter of Paris is an area in the 5th and parts of the 6th arrondissement of Paris. It is situated on the left bank of the Seine, around the Sorbonne.
Known for its student life, lively atmosphere and bistros, the Latin Quarter is the home to a number of higher education establishments besides the university itself, such as the École Normale Supérieure, the École des Mines de Paris (a ParisTech institute), the Schola Cantorum, and the Jussieu university campus. Other establishments such as the École Polytechnique (also a ParisTech engineering school) have relocated in recent times to more spacious settings.
The area gets its name from the Latin language, which was once widely spoken in and around the University since Latin was the international language of learning in the Middle Ages.
From left, Head of Mission of People's Republic of China to the European Union Hailong Wu, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarifat, an unidentified Russian official, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry pose for a photo following negotiations between the P5+1 member nations and Iranian officials about the future of their country’s nuclear program at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland on April 2, 2015. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]
Laboratoire de Physique des Interfaces et des Couches Minces ( LPICM ) de l'Ecole polytechnique
Crédit photographique : © École polytechnique - J.Barande
Place de Clichy 30/10/2023 21h03
Place de Clichy at night as seen from the Boulevard de Clichy. Four arrondissements get together here (17, 18, 8 and 9) and the monument of Maréchal Moncey standing proudly in the middle of the always busy square.
Place de Clichy
The Place de Clichy, also known as "Place Clichy", is situated in the northwestern quadrant of Paris. It is formed by the intersection of the Boulevard de Clichy, the Avenue Clichy, the Rue Clichy, the Boulevard des Batignolles, and the Rue d'Amsterdam.
It lies at the former site of the barrière de Clichy, an ancient portal in the Wall of the Farmers-General, leading to the village of Clichy, outside the wall.
The Place de Clichy is one of the few places in Paris where four arrondissements (the 8th, 9th, 17th, and 18th) meet at a single point. (The others are the Pont Saint-Michel, where the 1st, 4th, 5th, and 6th meet, and the Belleville roundabout, where the 10th, 11th, 19th and 20th come together.).
The Place de Clichy is also unusual in that it has been untouched by urban planners. This explains the heterogeneous façades of the buildings in the area. The Place de Clichy has the character of a substantial crossroads, rather than that of a real place (public square).
Surrounding the Place de Clichy is a lively array of shops, restaurants, and businesses, including a popular cinema. It is a hive of activity, both day and night.
In March 1814, at the close of the First French Empire, 800,000 soldiers of various foreign armies marched on Paris. After breaking through the barriers at Belleville and Pantin, they took the hill of Montmartre. Paris was protected in the north from Clichy to Neuilly, by 70,000 men of the garde nationale. In the face of the advancing enemy, the Maréchal de Moncey defended the barrière de Clichy. Moncey amassed 15,000 volunteers, tirailleurs — students from the École polytechnique and the École vétérinaire — and, despite their inexperience, valiantly resisted the Russian contingent until an armistice was declared on 30 March 1814.
A six-metre-tall bronze statue, executed by Amédée Doublemard and dedicated to de Moncey, stands on an ornate pedestal eight metres tall.
Facts & Figures:
Length & Width: 60 meters
Quartiers: Europe . Saint-Georges . Batignolles . Grandes Carrières.
Métro: 2 - 13
QCMX Lab - Quantum Circuits & Matter @ l'X
Landry BRETHEAU - Assistant Professor
portail.polytechnique.edu/lsi/en/research/new-electronic-...
With the financial support of:
- the Ecole Polytechnique (Young Team Fellowship QCMX)
- Agence Nationale de la Recherche (grant No. ANR-18-CE47-0012, JCJC QIPHSC & JCJC NEWS)
- DIM Ile-de-France SIRTEQ (grant ONQC)
- the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 947707).
Crédit photographique : © École polytechnique - J.Barande
Laboratoire de Physique des Interfaces et des Couches Minces ( LPICM ) de l'Ecole polytechnique
Crédit photographique : © École polytechnique - J.Barande
Portrait de Antigoni Alexandrou
Laboratoire d'Optique et Biosciences
Ecole Polytechnique CNRS UMR7645 - INSERM U1182
Crédit photographique : © École polytechnique - J.Barande
A team of astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has measured the universe's expansion rate using a technique that is completely independent of any previous method.
Knowing the precise value for how fast the universe expands is important for determining the age, size and fate of the cosmos. Unraveling this mystery has been one of the greatest challenges in astrophysics in recent years. The new study adds evidence to the idea that new theories may be needed to explain what scientists are finding.
The researchers' result further strengthens a troubling discrepancy between the expansion rate, called the Hubble constant, calculated from measurements of the local universe and the rate as predicted from background radiation in the early universe, a time before galaxies and stars even existed.
This latest value represents the most precise measurement yet using the gravitational lensing method, where the gravity of a foreground galaxy acts like a giant magnifying lens, amplifying and distorting light from background objects. This latest study did not rely on the traditional "cosmic distance ladder" technique to measure accurate distances to galaxies by using various types of stars as "milepost markers." Instead, the researchers employed the exotic physics of gravitational lensing to calculate the universe's expansion rate.
The astronomy team that made the new Hubble constant measurements is dubbed H0LiCOW (H0 Lenses in COSMOGRAIL's Wellspring). COSMOGRAIL is the acronym for Cosmological Monitoring of Gravitational Lenses, a large international project whose goal is monitoring gravitational lenses. "Wellspring" refers to the abundant supply of quasar lensing systems.
The research team derived the H0LiCOW value for the Hubble constant through observing and analysis techniques that have been greatly refined over the past two decades.
H0LiCOW and other recent measurements suggest a faster expansion rate in the local universe than was expected based on observations by the European Space Agency's Planck satellite of how the cosmos behaved more than 13 billion years ago.
The gulf between the two values has important implications for understanding the universe's underlying physical parameters and may require new physics to account for the mismatch.
"If these results do not agree, it may be a hint that we do not yet fully understand how matter and energy evolved over time, particularly at early times," said H0LiCOW team leader Sherry Suyu of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany, the Technical University of Munich, and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Taipei, Taiwan.
How They Did It
The H0LiCOW team used Hubble to observe the light from six faraway quasars, the brilliant searchlights from gas orbiting supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies. Quasars are ideal background objects for many reasons; for example, they are bright, extremely distant and scattered all over the sky. The telescope observed how the light from each quasar was multiplied into four images by the gravity of a massive foreground galaxy. The galaxies studied are 3 billion to 6.5 billion light-years away. The quasars' average distance is 5.5 billion light-years from Earth.
The light rays from each lensed quasar image take a slightly different path through space to reach Earth. The pathway's length depends on the amount of matter that is distorting space along the line of sight to the quasar. To trace each pathway, the astronomers monitor the flickering of the quasar's light as its black hole gobbles up material. When the light flickers, each lensed image brightens at a different time.
This flickering sequence allows researchers to measure the time delays between each image as the lensed light travels along its path to Earth. To fully understand these delays, the team first used Hubble to make accurate maps of the distribution of matter in each lensing galaxy. Astronomers could then reliably deduce the distances from the galaxy to the quasar, and from Earth to the galaxy and to the background quasar. By comparing these distance values, the researchers measured the universe's expansion rate.
"The length of each time delay indicates how fast the universe is expanding," said team member Kenneth Wong of the University of Tokyo's Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, lead author of the H0LiCOW collaboration's most recent paper. "If the time delays are shorter, then the universe is expanding at a faster rate. If they are longer, then the expansion rate is slower."
The time-delay process is analogous to four trains leaving the same station at exactly the same time and traveling at the same speed to reach the same destination. However, each of the trains arrives at the destination at a different time. That’s because each train takes a different route, and the distance for each route is not the same. Some trains travel over hills. Others go through valleys, and still others chug around mountains. From the varied arrival times, one can infer that each train traveled a different distance to reach the same stop. Similarly, the quasar flickering pattern does not appear at the same time because some of the light is delayed by traveling around bends created by the gravity of dense matter in the intervening galaxy.
How it Compares
The researchers calculated a Hubble constant value of 73 kilometers per second per megaparsec (with 2.4% uncertainty). This means that for every additional 3.3 million light-years away a galaxy is from Earth, it appears to be moving 73 kilometers per second faster, because of the universe's expansion.
The team's measurement also is close to the Hubble constant value of 74 calculated by the Supernova H0 for the Equation of State (SH0ES) team, which used the cosmic distance ladder technique. The SH0ES measurement is based on gauging the distances to galaxies near and far from Earth by using Cepheid variable stars and supernovas as measuring sticks to the galaxies.
The SH0ES and H0LiCOW values significantly differ from the Planck number of 67, strengthening the tension between Hubble constant measurements of the modern universe and the predicted value based on observations of the early universe.
"One of the challenges we overcame was having dedicated monitoring programs through COSMOGRAIL to get the time delays for several of these quasar lensing systems," said Frédéric Courbin of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, leader of the COSMOGRAIL project.
Suyu added: "At the same time, new mass modeling techniques were developed to measure a galaxy's matter distribution, including models we designed to make use of the high-resolution Hubble imaging. The images enabled us to reconstruct, for example, the quasars' host galaxies. These images, along with additional wider-field images taken from ground-based telescopes, also allow us to characterize the environment of the lens system, which affects the bending of light rays. The new mass modeling techniques, in combination with the time delays, help us to measure precise distances to the galaxies."
Begun in 2012, the H0LiCOW team now has Hubble images and time-delay information for 10 lensed quasars and intervening lensing galaxies. The team will continue to search for and follow up on new lensed quasars in collaboration with researchers from two new programs. One program, called STRIDES (STRong-lensing Insights into Dark Energy Survey), is searching for new lensed quasar systems. The second, called SHARP (Strong-lensing at High Angular Resolution Program), uses adaptive optics with the W.M. Keck telescopes to image the lensed systems. The team's goal is to observe 30 more lensed quasar systems to reduce their 2.4% percent uncertainty to 1%.
NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, expected to launch in 2021, may help them achieve their goal of 1% uncertainty much faster through Webb's ability to map the velocities of stars in a lensing galaxy, which will allow astronomers to develop more precise models of the galaxy's distribution of dark matter.
The H0LiCOW team's work also paves the way for studying hundreds of lensed quasars that astronomers are discovering through surveys such as the Dark Energy Survey and PanSTARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System), and the upcoming National Science Foundation's Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which is expected to uncover thousands of additional sources.
In addition, NASA's Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) will help astronomers address the disagreement in the Hubble constant value by tracing the expansion history of the universe. The mission will also use multiple techniques, such as sampling thousands of supernovae and other objects at various distances, to help determine whether the discrepancy is a result of measurement errors, observational technique, or whether astronomers need to adjust the theory from which they derive their predictions.
The team will present its results at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu, Hawaii.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C.
For more information: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/cosmic-magnifying-glass...
Credits: NASA, ESA, S.H. Suyu (Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Technical University of Munich, and Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics) and K.C. Wong (University of Tokyo’s Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe)
Montreal 15/04 - Heavy snow fall
Nikon F90X
Lensbaby composer
Kodak Tri X @800
Kodak D76 (stock)
Nikon Coolscan LS5000
CS 5 minor fixes
Clothilde Raoux
Laboratoire d'Optique et Biosciences Ecole Polytechnique - CNRS UMR 7645 - INSERM U1182
Crédit photographique : © École polytechnique - J.Barande
A Nave for Fourteen Queens / Rose-Marie E. Goulet,
Memorial park of the polyechnique school shooting. - Detail
Nef pour quatorze reines de Rose-Marie / E. Goulet,
Mémorial de la fusillade de l'école polytechnique - Detail
Montréal / Montreal 2014/10/11
Empty spaces - what are we living for?
Abandoned places - I guess we know the score..
On and on!
Does anybody know what we are looking for?
Another hero - another mindless crime.
Behind the curtain, in the pantomime.
Hold the line!
Does anybody want to take it anymore?
The Show must go on!
The Show must go on!Yeah!
Inside my heart is breaking,
My make-up may be flaking
But my smile, still, stays on!
Queen - The show must go on.
Nikon F100
Nikkor micro 60mm
Kodak tri X (pushed at 800)
Kodak D76 (stock)
Nikon coolscan LS5000
CS5 : Contrast and unsharp mask
Léon Cogniet. 1794-1880. Paris. Autoportrait. Self-portrait. vers 1817. Orléans. Musée des Beaux Arts.
LEON COGNIET
Le peintre a été l'élève de Pierre Narcisse Guérin dans l'atelier duquel il rencontre Eugène Delacroix, Théodore Géricault, Ary Scheffer. Prix de Rome en 1817 il séjourne dans cette ville deux ans (1817-1822). De retour à Paris il acquiert une belle réputation. Il est classé dans l'école romantique, et comme Delacroix, ou Chassériau il annonce très évidemment certaines techniques de l'Art Moderne (esquisse, tachisme). En 1843 il obtient un très gros succès au Salon de Paris avec son "Tintorêt peignant sa fille morte" (Bordeaux). Il fit, dès 1843, une carrière d'enseignant aux Beaux Arts de Paris, bien plus que de peintre, et ses tableaux ne sont pas très nombreux. Il est peu connu du grand public. Le Musée qui recueille le plus grand nombre de ses oeuvres est celui d'Orléans. Léon Cogniet est certainement encore bien au goût du grand public de notre époque contemporaine, amateur d'art moderne. (Je n'ai pas dis amateur d'art contemporain). Il montre bien que l'art moderne plonge ses racines une bonne génération avant les impressionnistes, et les années 1870, qui sont retenues généralement comme la date de naissance de l'Art Moderne (Jusqu'aux années 1950). Beaucoup des tableaux du musée d'Orléans sont des études ou des esquisses préparatoires, mais professeur de dessin et de peinture à Polytechnique et aux Beaux Arts, la peinture académique n'avait pas de secret pour Léon Cogniet. Il montre ainsi très clairement que, "l'esquisse" "le tachisme" et "la peinture plate", sont des techniques, employées par lui de manière très systématique, non par facilité, ou seulement à titre d'étude, mais dans le but de poser les bases d'une nouvelle esthétique. Sa situation d'enseignant a fait que ce peintre, peu connu de nos jours du grand public, a certainement eu une grande influence sur l'histoire de la peinture.
The painter was a student of Pierre Narcisse Guérin in whose studio he met Eugène Delacroix, Théodore Géricault, Ary Scheffer. Prix de Rome in 1817 he stayed in this city two years (1817-1822). On returning to Paris he acquired a fine reputation. It is classified in the romantic school, and as Delacroix and Chassériau it very clearly announces certain techniques of Modern Art (sketch, tachisme). In 1843 he obtained a huge success at the Paris Salon with his "Tintoretto painting his dead daughter" (Bordeaux). He did, early as 1843, a teaching career at the Beaux Arts in Paris, much more than a painter, and his pictures are not very many. It is unknown to the general public. The museum that collects the greatest number of his works is that of Orleans.
Leon Cogniet is certainly much to the taste of the general public of our contemporary time, amateur of modern art. (I did not say contemporary art lover). It shows that Modern Art has its roots largely a generation before the Impressionists, and the 1870s, which are generally considered as the date of birth of the Modern Art (until the 1950s).
Many paintings of the Museum of Orleans, are studies or preparatory sketches, but professor of drawing and painting at Polytechnique and at the Fine Arts, academic painting had no secret for Leon Cogniet. He shows very clearly that the "sketch", the "tachism", and the "flat Painting" are techniques employed by him in a very systematic way, not by easiness, or only as a study, but in order to lay the foundations of a new aesthetic. His teaching position was that this painter, little known today, has certainly had a great influence on the history of European painting.
Please press "L" for a better view.
The sky above and the pond below. This is Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France.
Executive master de l'Ecole polytechnique à Berkeley Crédit photographique : © École polytechnique - J.Barande
D'Estienne d'Orves, héros de la résistance
Le 27 juin 1991, un hommage à la mémoire de Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves a été rendu à Pors Loubous sur le lieu même de son débarquement. Les hommes de l'aviso d'Estienne d'Orves étaient présents, emmenés par leur commandant, le capitaine de frégate Thierry Bonne, qui prononça le discours suivant :
Ici-même, le 22 décembre 1940, par une nuit froide, arrive le bateau de pêche la Marie-Louise. Jean-François Follic (mon grand-père) en est le patron. Son équipage se compose de Pierre Cornec, Yves-Deguin, Jean Biger et Martial Bizien. Le CC Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves a embarqué en Angleterre et revient ici en France.
Vingt ans auparavant, après l'Ecole Polytechnique, il a commencé sa carrière dans la Marine, et a longuement navigué sur toutes les mers du globe. Ne pouvant se résoudre à la défaite de mai 1940 et à l'armistice, il quitte la flotte d'Alexandrie et rejoint l'Angleterre. A son Amiral, il écrit alors . « Sans me permettre de juger le Département, je ne puis me croire qualifié pour reconstruire la France ainsi qu'on nous le propose. Tant qu'il y aura une lueur d'espoir je combattrai pour débarrasser mon pays de l'emprise de cet homme qui veut détruire nos familles et nos traditions. Mes ancêtres se sont battus jusqu'au bout, je ne puis faire autrement que les imiter. » [...] Car Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves sait que la résistance, c'est surtout la résistance à l'ennemi, là où il se trouve et, d'abord, en France.
Le voici donc ici à Plogoff au soir du 22 décembre 1940. Follic et Cornec conduisent en canot le Commandant d'Estienne d'Orves et "Marty" (le quartier-maître radio qui l'accompagne) de la Marie-Louise, mouillée au large jusqu'à la digue de Pors-Loubous. Pierre Cornec accompagne les deux passagers jusqu'à la maison des Normant. En arrivant chez eux le Commandant d'Estienne d'Orves s'écrie, tombant à genoux « Me voilà de nouveau sur la terre de France ! ».
Dès le lendemain il rencontre le lieutenant Barlier à la baie des Trépassés. Puis des contacts sont pris à Nantes et Paris. Entre le 22 décembre 1940 et le 22 janvier 1941, les membres du réseau NEMROD, sous la responsabilité de leur chef d'Estienne d'Orves, font parvenir des renseignements par radio à Londres.
Trahis par Marty, les membres du réseau sont arrêtés le 22 janvier. Emprisonnés à Berlin puis a la prison du Cherche-Midi à Paris, ils sont jugés du 13 au 16 mai.
De sa cellule, avant la première audience, le commandant d'Estienne d'Orves a donné ses ordres à ses compagnons : « Vous avez fait votre devoir. Il vous en reste deux à remplir : sauver les camarades qui ne sont pas arrêtés et sauver vos têtes à cause de vos familles. Ne faites pas de patriotisme cocardier : cherchez et trouvez des alibis, faites les moi connaitre, je les confirmerai et je vous couvre tous. Mettez tout sur mon compte, autant que possible. »
Cérémonie réunissant des anciens combattants et une délégation de l'aviso D'Estienne d'Orves pour un dépot de gerbes et hommage à la mémoire du lieutenant de vaisseau d'Estienne d'Orves (27 juin 1991).
Neuf personnes sont condamnées à mort, les autres à des peïnes de travaux forcés. Pendant tout son séjour à la prison de Fresnes et jusqu'à l'heure de sa mort le 29 août 1941, Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves communique aux autres prisonniers sa très grande hauteur morale.
« Que personne ne songe à me venger. Je ne désire que la paix dans la grandeur retrouvée de la France. Dites bien à tous que je meurs pour elle, pour sa liberté entière, et que j'espère que mon sacrifice lui servira. ». Nous, marins de l'aviso "D'ESTIENNE D'ORVES", sommes fiers de porter un tel nom.
D'Estienne d'Orves, hero of the resistance
On June 27, 1991, a tribute to the memory of Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves was paid to Pors Loubous on the spot of his landing. The men of the sloop, Inc. Headquarters were present, led by their commander, Commander Thierry Bonne, who delivered the following speech:
Right here, December 22, 1940, on a cold night, comes the fishing boat the Marie-Louise. Jean-François Follic (my grandfather) is the boss. Its crew consists of Pierre Cornec, Yves-Deguine, Jean and Martial Biger Bizien. The CC Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves embarked in England and returned here in France.
Twenty years ago, after the Ecole Polytechnique, he began his career in the Navy, and at length sailed all seven seas. Unable to bring himself to defeat in May 1940 and the armistice, he left the fleet in Alexandria and went to England. On his Admiral, he wrote then. "Without me to judge the Department, I can not believe qualified to rebuild France and that we propose. As long as there is a glimmer of hope I will fight to rid my country from the grip of the man who wants to destroy our families and traditions. My ancestors fought to the end, I can not help but follow suit. "For [...] Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves known that resistance, especially resistance to the enemy where he is and, first in France.
So here Plogoff by the evening of December 22, 1940. Follic Cornec and lead canoe Commandant d'Estienne d'Orves and "Marty" (the quartermaster accompanying radio) of the Marie-Louise, wet up off the dam of Pors-Loubous. Pierre Cornec accompanies two passengers to the house of the Standards. Upon arriving home the Commandant d'Estienne d'Orves cried, falling on his knees "Here I am again in the land of France! ".
The next day he met Lieutenant Barlier at the Bay of Souls. And contacts are made in Nantes and Paris. Between 22 December 1940 and January 22, 1941, members of the network Nimrod, under the responsibility of their leader, Inc. Headquarters, shall send information by radio in London.
Betrayed by Marty, network members were arrested Jan. 22. Imprisoned in Berlin and then the prison of Cherche-Midi in Paris, they are considered the May 13 to 16
From his cell before the first hearing, the commander, Inc. Headquarters gave orders to his companions: "You have done your duty. There you have two more to complete: saving the comrades who are not arrested and save your heads because your families. Do not jingoistic patriotism: looking to find alibis, make me know, I confirm and I cover all. Put everything on my account, as far as possible. "
Ceremony attended by veterans and a delegation of the sloop D'Estienne d'Orves for a wreath laying and tribute to the memory of Lieutenant d'Estienne d'Orves (June 27, 1991).
Nine people sentenced to death, others were sentenced to hard labor. Throughout his stay in Fresnes prison until the time of his death August 29, 1941, Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves communicate to his fellow prisoners great moral height.
"Let no one think of revenge. I do not want that peace in the greatness of France found. Well tell everyone that I die for her, for her complete freedom, and hope that my sacrifice will serve. ". We, the sailors of the sloop "D'Estienne d'Orves," are proud to wear such a name.
The Rolex Learning Centre ("EPFL Learning Centre") is the campus hub and library for the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), in Lausanne, Switzerland. Designed by the winners of 2010 Pritzker Prize, Japanese-duo SANAA, it opened on 22 February 2010.
Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, partners of the Tokyo-based design firm SANAA, were selected as the lead architects in EPFL's international competition of December 2004. The team was selected among famous architects and even some Pritzker Prize Laureates such as Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Jean Nouvel, Herzog & de Meuron, Ábalos & Herreros and Xaveer De Geyter.
The construction took place between 2007 and 2009. It cost 110 million Swiss francs and was funded by the Swiss government as well as by private sponsors (Rolex, Logitech, Bouygues Construction, Crédit Suisse, Nestlé, Novartis and SICPA).
The building opened on 22 February 2010 and was inaugurated on 27 May 2010. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolex_Learning_Center
Gwénaëlle Hamon chercheuse au LPICM
Réalisation de cellules solaires en Si et en matériaux III-V dans le cadre du projet IMPETUS, collaboration entre le LPICM, le III-V Lab, Total et le GeePs
December 6th was the National Day of Remembrance and Action On Violence Against Women. This was the day in 1989 that Marc Lepine walked into the L´École Polytechnique in Montréal and, separating the men from the women, methodically killed 14 women simply because they were women.
Each pair of shoes represent a woman who has been killed. A list of names is displayed to honour the memory of the women, and their families. After this memorial, the shoes are donated to women in need.
Vancouver Art Gallery
Vancouver, British Columbia
This research conducted by the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, EFLUM) and the University of British Columbia (UBC) investigated turbulence and surface-atmosphere exchange over a snow-covered glacier (Plaine Morte, Switzerland). Photo by Andreas Christen, UBC.
Part of album Snow-atmosphere interactions
To put you in context, in 1989, the minimum wage is $ 5 an hour, and planned spending for Quebec will be $ 33.2 billion. Nurses are exerting pressure, culminating in a strike in September. Shortly after, 200,000 civil servants went on strike. Abortion is a hot topic with the Chantale Daigle case. On December 6, 14 women were murdered by Marc Lépine at the École Polytechnique. On the environmental side, PCBs are dumped in Saint-Maurice and tires burn in La Prairie. Guy Lafleur signs his contract with the Nordiques, Roch Voisine sings us the apple and the guys from RBO make us laugh.
And like that, Jean-François Renaud, owner of the Oclan boutique, said to himself in response to this rather dark period: “Fuck la mode”(Fuck fashion).
The genesis of this story is a postcard that will serve as a mass mailing for its customers. A simple affirmation to make people react. “Customers liked it so much, they asked for t-shirts. At that point, I had 60 printed and I thought it was going to end there. From the moment the t-shirts hit the floor, it never stopped. To date, we have sold over 100,000 units, ”says Renaud. He specifies that "'Fuck la mode', initially was something irreverent in the tone of the time. Moschino had done something similar. Now in 2020 with the pandemic, there is even more weight when you say you do what you want, that you wear what you want ... fuck the fashion. "
"This is the idea you have once in your life. I pinch myself every day. It's provocative, it tickles. I had this reflection on my own. At the time, it was difficult. I was responding to the gloom. ”
After more than 30 years, this concept continues to grow. From a simple initial t-shirt, there is now a wide range of products: hoodies, hats, caps, stockings, towels and protective masks.
The logo has evolved and been declined in several ways, always with a humorous touch. “I had the idea to decline when I joined Gucci… Guccheap. To laugh at expensive fashion. I also did a pastiche of the brands Yves Saint-Laurent, Givenchy, Supreme and Comme des Garçons. I mix humor with big brands. ""'Fuck la mode', initially was something irreverent in the tone of the time. [...] Now in 2020 with the pandemic, there is even more weight when we say that we do what we want, that we wear what we want ... "
- Jean-François Renaud, owner of the Oclan boutique
Have a wonderful weekend!
Photo from my archives
Léon Cogniet. 1794-1880. Paris. Scène de fantasia près des ruines de Thèbes. Fantasia scene near the ruins of Thebes. Orléans Musée des Beaux Arts. Projet pour un plafond. Project for a ceiling.
LEON COGNIET
Le peintre a été l'élève de Pierre Narcisse Guérin dans l'atelier duquel il rencontre Eugène Delacroix, Théodore Géricault, Ary Scheffer. Prix de Rome en 1817 il séjourne dans cette ville deux ans (1817-1822). De retour à Paris il acquiert une belle réputation. Il est classé dans l'école romantique, et comme Delacroix, ou Chassériau il annonce très évidemment certaines techniques de l'Art Moderne (esquisse, tachisme). En 1843 il obtient un très gros succès au Salon de Paris avec son "Tintorêt peignant sa fille morte" (Bordeaux). Il fit, dès 1843, une carrière d'enseignant aux Beaux Arts de Paris, bien plus que de peintre, et ses tableaux ne sont pas très nombreux. Il est peu connu du grand public. Le Musée qui recueille le plus grand nombre de ses oeuvres est celui d'Orléans. Léon Cogniet est certainement encore bien au goût du grand public de notre époque contemporaine, amateur d'art moderne. (Je n'ai pas dis amateur d'art contemporain). Il montre bien que l'art moderne plonge ses racines une bonne génération avant les impressionnistes, et les années 1870, qui sont retenues généralement comme la date de naissance de l'Art Moderne (Jusqu'aux années 1950). Beaucoup des tableaux du musée d'Orléans sont des études ou des esquisses préparatoires, mais professeur de dessin et de peinture à Polytechnique et aux Beaux Arts, la peinture académique n'avait pas de secret pour Léon Cogniet. Il montre ainsi très clairement que, "l'esquisse" "le tachisme" et "la peinture plate", sont des techniques, employées par lui de manière très systématique, non par facilité, ou seulement à titre d'étude, mais dans le but de poser les bases d'une nouvelle esthétique. Sa situation d'enseignant a fait que ce peintre, peu connu de nos jours du grand public, a certainement eu une grande influence sur l'histoire de la peinture.
The painter was a student of Pierre Narcisse Guérin in whose studio he met Eugène Delacroix, Théodore Géricault, Ary Scheffer. Prix de Rome in 1817 he stayed in this city two years (1817-1822). On returning to Paris he acquired a fine reputation. It is classified in the romantic school, and as Delacroix and Chassériau it very clearly announces certain techniques of Modern Art (sketch, tachisme). In 1843 he obtained a huge success at the Paris Salon with his "Tintoretto painting his dead daughter" (Bordeaux). He did, early as 1843, a teaching career at the Beaux Arts in Paris, much more than a painter, and his pictures are not very many. It is unknown to the general public. The museum that collects the greatest number of his works is that of Orleans.
Leon Cogniet is certainly much to the taste of the general public of our contemporary time, amateur of modern art. (I did not say contemporary art lover). It shows that Modern Art has its roots largely a generation before the Impressionists, and the 1870s, which are generally considered as the date of birth of the Modern Art (until the 1950s).
Many paintings of the Museum of Orleans, are studies or preparatory sketches, but professor of drawing and painting at Polytechnique and at the Fine Arts, academic painting had no secret for Leon Cogniet. He shows very clearly that the "sketch", the "tachism", and the "flat Painting" are techniques employed by him in a very systematic way, not by easiness, or only as a study, but in order to lay the foundations of a new aesthetic. His teaching position was that this painter, little known today, has certainly had a great influence on the history of European painting.
Rue Monge | Rue de Miribel 17/07/2016 09h28
A sunny Sunday morning in the 5ème arrondissement of Paris. The corner of the Rue Monge and Rue de Miribel near métro station Censier-Daubenton (ligne 7). The church in the background is the Paroisse Saint Médard.
Rue Monge
Rue Monge is a street in the 5ème arrondissement in the quartiers Saint-Victor and Jardin des Plantes. It has a length of 1260 meters and a width of 20 meters. Starting at boulevard Saint-Germain and ending at avenue des Gobelins.
The path was traced by Theodore Vacquer in 1860 by absorbing a portion of the Rue Saint-Victor. During 1869 works were unearthed the long-sought remains of des arènes de Lutèce. The street is named after Gaspard Monge (1746-1818), French mathematician, one of the founders of the Ecole Polytechnique.
By métro Rue Monge is easily accessible by métro line 7 (Censier – Daubenton and Place Monge) and 10 ( Cardinal Lemoine and Maubert - Mutualité) and bus lines 27, 47 and 86.
[ Source: Wikipedia - Rue Monge ]
European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif address reporters following negotiations between the P5+1 member nations and Iranian officials about the future of their country’s nuclear program at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland on April 2, 2015. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]
This research conducted by the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, EFLUM) and the University of British Columbia (UBC) investigated turbulence and surface-atmosphere exchange over a snow-covered glacier (Plaine Morte, Switzerland). Photo by Andreas Christen, UBC.
Part of album Snow-atmosphere interactions
Alexandre Gustave Eiffel 15 December 1832 – 27 December 1923) was a French civil engineer. A graduate of École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, he made his name with various bridges for the French railway network, most famously the Garabit Viaduct. He is best known for the world-famous Eiffel Tower, designed by his company and built for the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris, and his contribution to building the Statue of Liberty in New York. After his retirement from engineering, Eiffel focused on research into meteorology and aerodynamics, making significant contributions in both fields.
Alexandre Gustave Eiffel was born in France, in the Côte-d'Or, the first child of Catherine-Mélanie (née Moneuse) and Alexandre Bonickhausen dit Eiffel. He was a descendant of Marguerite Frédérique (née Lideriz) and Jean-René Bönickhausen and who had emigrated from the German town of Marmagen and settled in Paris at the beginning of the 19th century. The family adopted the name Eiffel as a reference to the Eifel mountains in the region from which they had come. Although the family always used the name Eiffel, Gustave's name was registered at birth as Bonickhausen dit Eiffel, and was not formally changed to Eiffel until 1880.
At the time of Gustave's birth his father, an ex-soldier, was working as an administrator for the French Army; but shortly after his birth his mother expanded a charcoal business she had inherited from her parents to include a coal-distribution business, and soon afterwards his father gave up his job to assist her. Due to his mother's business commitments, Gustave spent his childhood living with his grandmother, but nevertheless remained close to his mother, who was to remain an influential figure until her death in 1878. The business was successful enough for Catherine Eiffel to sell it in 1843 and retire on the proceeds. Eiffel was not a studious child, and thought his classes at the Lycée Royal in Dijon boring and a waste of time, although in his last two years, influenced by his teachers for history and literature, he began to study seriously, and he gained his baccalauréats in humanities and science. An important part in his education was played by his uncle, Jean-Baptiste Mollerat, who had invented a process for distilling vinegar and had a large chemical works near Dijon, and one of his uncle's friends, the chemist Michel Perret. Both men spent a lot of time with the young Eiffel, teaching him about everything from chemistry and mining to theology and philosophy.
Eiffel went on to attend the Collège Sainte-Barbe in Paris, to prepare for the difficult entrance exams set by engineering colleges in France, and qualified for entry to two of the most prestigious schools – École polytechnique and École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures – and ultimately entered the latter. During his second year he chose to specialize in chemistry, and graduated ranking at 13th place out of 80 candidates in 1855. This was the year that Paris hosted a World's Fair, and Eiffel was bought a season ticket by his mother.
The design of the Eiffel Tower was originated by Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier, who had discussed ideas for a centrepiece for the 1889 Exposition Universelle. In May 1884 Koechlin, working at his home, made an outline drawing of their scheme, described by him as "a great pylon, consisting of four lattice girders standing apart at the base and coming together at the top, joined together by metal trusses at regular intervals". Initially Eiffel showed little enthusiasm, although he did sanction further study of the project, and the two engineers then asked Stephen Sauvestre to add architectural embellishments. Sauvestre added the decorative arches to the base, a glass pavilion to the first level and the cupola at the top. The enhanced idea gained Eiffel's support for the project, and he bought the rights to the patent on the design which Koechlin, Nougier and Sauvestre had taken out. The design was exhibited at the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in the autumn of 1884, and on 30 March 1885 Eiffel read a paper on the project to the Société des Ingénieurs Civils. After discussing the technical problems and emphasising the practical uses of the tower, he finished his talk by saying that the tower would symbolise
"not only the art of the modern engineer, but also the century of Industry and Science in which we are living, and for which the way was prepared by the great scientific movement of the eighteenth century and by the Revolution of 1789, to which this monument will be built as an expression of France's gratitude."
Little happened until the beginning of 1886, but with the re-election of Jules Grévy as president and his appointment of Edouard Lockroy as Minister for Trade decisions began to be made. A budget for the Exposition was passed and on 1 May Lockroy announced an alteration to the terms of the open competition which was being held for a centerpiece for the exposition, which effectively made the choice of Eiffel's design a foregone conclusion: all entries had to include a study for a 300 m (980 ft) four-sided metal tower on the Champ de Mars. On 12 May a commission was set up to examine Eiffel's scheme and its rivals and on 12 June it presented its decision, which was that only Eiffel's proposal met their requirements. After some debate about the exact site for the tower, a contract was signed on 8 January 1887. This was signed by Eiffel acting in his own capacity rather than as the representative of his company, and granted him one and a half million francs toward the construction costs. This was less than a quarter of the estimated cost of six and a half million francs. Eiffel was to receive all income from the commercial exploitation during the exhibition and for the following twenty years. Eiffel later established a separate company to manage the tower.
The tower had been a subject of some controversy, attracting criticism both from those who did not believe it feasible and from those who objected on artistic grounds. Just as work began at the Champ de Mars, the "Committee of Three Hundred" (one member for each metre of the tower's height) was formed, led by Charles Garnier and including some of the most important figures of the French arts establishment, including Adolphe Bouguereau, Guy de Maupassant, Charles Gounod and Jules Massenet: a petition was sent to Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand, the Minister of Works, and was published by Le Temps.
"To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years ... we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal"
Work on the foundations started on 28 January 1887. Those for the east and south legs were straightforward, each leg resting on four 2 m (6.6 ft) concrete slabs, one for each of the principal girders of each leg but the other two, being closer to the river Seine were more complicated: each slab needed two piles installed by using compressed-air caissons 15 m (49 ft) long and 6 m (20 ft) in diameter driven to a depth of 22 m (72 ft) to support the concrete slabs, which were 6 m (20 ft) thick. Each of these slabs supported a limestone block, each with an inclined top to bear the supporting shoe for the ironwork. These shoes were anchored by bolts 10 cm (4 in) in diameter and 7.5 m (25 ft) long. Work on the foundations was complete by 30 June and the erection of the iron work was started. Although no more than 250 men were employed on the site, a prodigious amount of exacting preparatory work was entailed: the drawing office produced 1,700 general drawings and 3,629 detail drawings of the 18,038 different parts needed. The task of drawing the components was complicated by the complex angles involved in the design and the degree of precision required: the positions of rivet holes were specified to within 0.1 mm (0.004 in) and angles worked out to one second of arc. The components, some already riveted together into sub-assemblies, were first bolted together, the bolts being replaced by rivets as construction progressed. No drilling or shaping was done on site: if any part did not fit it was sent back to the factory for alteration. The four legs, each at an angle of 54° to the ground, were initially constructed as cantilevers, relying on the anchoring bolts in the masonry foundation blocks. Eiffel had calculated that this would be satisfactory until they approached halfway to the first level: accordingly work was stopped for the purpose of erecting a wooden supporting scaffold. This gave ammunition to his critics, and lurid headlines including "Eiffel Suicide!" and "Gustave Eiffel has gone mad: he has been confined in an Asylum" appeared in the popular press. At this stage a small "creeper" crane was installed in each leg, designed to move up the tower as construction progressed and making use of the guides for the elevators which were to be fitted in each leg. After this brief pause erection of the metalwork continued, and the critical operation of linking the four legs was successfully completed by March 1888. In order to precisely align the legs so that the connecting girders could be put into place, a provision had been made to enable precise adjustments by placing hydraulic jacks in the footings for each of the girders making up the legs.
The main structural work was completed at the end of March 1889 and, on 31 March, Eiffel celebrated by leading a group of government officials, accompanied by representatives of the press, to the top of the tower. Since the lifts were not yet in operation, the ascent was made by foot, and took over an hour, Eiffel frequently stopping to make explanations of various features. Most of the party chose to stop at the lower levels, but a few, including Nouguier, Compagnon, the President of the City Council and reporters from Le Figaro and Le Monde Illustré completed the climb. At 2.35 Eiffel hoisted a large tricolour, to the accompaniment of a 25-gun salute fired from the lower level.
The Eiffel Tower is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.
Locally nicknamed "La dame de fer" (French for "Iron Lady"), it was constructed from 1887 to 1889 as the centerpiece of the 1889 World's Fair and was initially criticised by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design, but it has become a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognisable structures in the world. The Eiffel Tower is the most visited monument with an entrance fee in the world; 6.91 million people ascended it in 2015. It was designated a monument historique in 1964, and was named part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site ("Paris, Banks of the Seine") in 1991.
The tower is 330 metres (1,083 ft) tall, about the same height as an 81-storey building, and the tallest structure in Paris. Its base is square, measuring 125 metres (410 ft) on each side. During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to become the tallest man-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years until the Chrysler Building in New York City was finished in 1930. It was the first structure in the world to surpass both the 200-metre and 300-metre mark in height. Due to the addition of a broadcasting aerial at the top of the tower in 1957, it is now taller than the Chrysler Building by 5.2 metres (17 ft). Excluding transmitters, the Eiffel Tower is the second tallest free-standing structure in France after the Millau Viaduct.
The tower has three levels for visitors, with restaurants on the first and second levels. The top level's upper platform is 276 m (906 ft) above the ground – the highest observation deck accessible to the public in the European Union. Tickets can be purchased to ascend by stairs or lift to the first and second levels. The climb from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the climb from the first level to the second, making the entire ascent a 600 step climb. Although there is a staircase to the top level, it is usually accessible only by lift.
The design of the Eiffel Tower is attributed to Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, two senior engineers working for the Compagnie des Établissements Eiffel. It was envisioned after discussion about a suitable centerpiece for the proposed 1889 Exposition Universelle, a world's fair to celebrate the centennial of the French Revolution. Eiffel openly acknowledged that inspiration for a tower came from the Latting Observatory built in New York City in 1853. In May 1884, working at home, Koechlin made a sketch of their idea, described by him as "a great pylon, consisting of four lattice girders standing apart at the base and coming together at the top, joined together by metal trusses at regular intervals". Eiffel initially showed little enthusiasm, but he did approve further study, and the two engineers then asked Stephen Sauvestre, the head of the company's architectural department, to contribute to the design. Sauvestre added decorative arches to the base of the tower, a glass pavilion to the first level, and other embellishments.
The new version gained Eiffel's support: he bought the rights to the patent on the design which Koechlin, Nougier, and Sauvestre had taken out, and the design was put on display at the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in the autumn of 1884 under the company name. On 30 March 1885, Eiffel presented his plans to the Société des Ingénieurs Civils; after discussing the technical problems and emphasising the practical uses of the tower, he finished his talk by saying the tower would symbolise
[n]ot only the art of the modern engineer, but also the century of Industry and Science in which we are living, and for which the way was prepared by the great scientific movement of the eighteenth century and by the Revolution of 1789, to which this monument will be built as an expression of France's gratitude.
Little progress was made until 1886, when Jules Grévy was re-elected as president of France and Édouard Lockroy was appointed as minister for trade. A budget for the exposition was passed and, on 1 May, Lockroy announced an alteration to the terms of the open competition being held for a centrepiece to the exposition, which effectively made the selection of Eiffel's design a foregone conclusion, as entries had to include a study for a 300 m (980 ft) four-sided metal tower on the Champ de Mars. (A 300-metre tower was then considered a herculean engineering effort). On 12 May, a commission was set up to examine Eiffel's scheme and its rivals, which, a month later, decided that all the proposals except Eiffel's were either impractical or lacking in details.
After some debate about the exact location of the tower, a contract was signed on 8 January 1887. Eiffel signed it acting in his own capacity rather than as the representative of his company, the contract granting him 1.5 million francs toward the construction costs: less than a quarter of the estimated 6.5 million francs. Eiffel was to receive all income from the commercial exploitation of the tower during the exhibition and for the next 20 years. He later established a separate company to manage the tower, putting up half the necessary capital himself.
The Crédit Industriel et Commercial (C.I.C.) helped finance the construction of the Eiffel Tower. According to a New York Times investigation into France's colonial legacy in Haiti, at the time of the tower's construction, the bank was acquiring funds from predatory loans related to the Haiti indemnity controversy – a debt forced upon Haiti by France to pay for slaves lost following the Haitian Revolution – and transferring Haiti's wealth into France. The Times reported that the C.I.C. benefited from a loan that required the Haitian Government to pay the bank and its partner nearly half of all taxes the Haitian government collected on exports, writing that by "effectively choking off the nation’s primary source of income", the C.I.C. "left a crippling legacy of financial extraction and dashed hopes — even by the standards of a nation with a long history of both."
Work on the foundations started on 28 January 1887. Those for the east and south legs were straightforward, with each leg resting on four 2 m (6.6 ft) concrete slabs, one for each of the principal girders of each leg. The west and north legs, being closer to the river Seine, were more complicated: each slab needed two piles installed by using compressed-air caissons 15 m (49 ft) long and 6 m (20 ft) in diameter driven to a depth of 22 m (72 ft) to support the concrete slabs, which were 6 m (20 ft) thick. Each of these slabs supported a block of limestone with an inclined top to bear a supporting shoe for the ironwork.
Each shoe was anchored to the stonework by a pair of bolts 10 cm (4 in) in diameter and 7.5 m (25 ft) long. The foundations were completed on 30 June, and the erection of the ironwork began. The visible work on-site was complemented by the enormous amount of exacting preparatory work that took place behind the scenes: the drawing office produced 1,700 general drawings and 3,629 detailed drawings of the 18,038 different parts needed. The task of drawing the components was complicated by the complex angles involved in the design and the degree of precision required: the position of rivet holes was specified to within 1 mm (0.04 in) and angles worked out to one second of arc. The finished components, some already riveted together into sub-assemblies, arrived on horse-drawn carts from a factory in the nearby Parisian suburb of Levallois-Perret and were first bolted together, with the bolts being replaced with rivets as construction progressed. No drilling or shaping was done on site: if any part did not fit, it was sent back to the factory for alteration. In all, 18,038 pieces were joined together using 2.5 million rivets.
At first, the legs were constructed as cantilevers, but about halfway to the first level construction was paused to create a substantial timber scaffold. This renewed concerns about the structural integrity of the tower, and sensational headlines such as "Eiffel Suicide!" and "Gustave Eiffel Has Gone Mad: He Has Been Confined in an Asylum" appeared in the tabloid press. At this stage, a small "creeper" crane designed to move up the tower was installed in each leg. They made use of the guides for the lifts which were to be fitted in the four legs. The critical stage of joining the legs at the first level was completed by the end of March 1888. Although the metalwork had been prepared with the utmost attention to detail, provision had been made to carry out small adjustments to precisely align the legs; hydraulic jacks were fitted to the shoes at the base of each leg, capable of exerting a force of 800 tonnes, and the legs were intentionally constructed at a slightly steeper angle than necessary, being supported by sandboxes on the scaffold. Although construction involved 300 on-site employees, due to Eiffel's safety precautions and the use of movable gangways, guardrails and screens, only one person died.
The main structural work was completed at the end of March 1889 and, on 31 March, Eiffel celebrated by leading a group of government officials, accompanied by representatives of the press, to the top of the tower. Because the lifts were not yet in operation, the ascent was made by foot, and took over an hour, with Eiffel stopping frequently to explain various features. Most of the party chose to stop at the lower levels, but a few, including the structural engineer, Émile Nouguier, the head of construction, Jean Compagnon, the President of the City Council, and reporters from Le Figaro and Le Monde Illustré, completed the ascent. At 2:35 pm, Eiffel hoisted a large Tricolour to the accompaniment of a 25-gun salute fired at the first level.
There was still work to be done, particularly on the lifts and facilities, and the tower was not opened to the public until nine days after the opening of the exposition on 6 May; even then, the lifts had not been completed. The tower was an instant success with the public, and nearly 30,000 visitors made the 1,710-step climb to the top before the lifts entered service on 26 May. Tickets cost 2 francs for the first level, 3 for the second, and 5 for the top, with half-price admission on Sundays, and by the end of the exhibition there had been 1,896,987 visitors.
After dark, the tower was lit by hundreds of gas lamps, and a beacon sent out three beams of red, white and blue light. Two searchlights mounted on a circular rail were used to illuminate various buildings of the exposition. The daily opening and closing of the exposition were announced by a cannon at the top.
On the second level, the French newspaper Le Figaro had an office and a printing press, where a special souvenir edition, Le Figaro de la Tour, was made. There was also a pâtisserie.
At the top, there was a post office where visitors could send letters and postcards as a memento of their visit. Graffitists were also catered for: sheets of paper were mounted on the walls each day for visitors to record their impressions of the tower. Gustave Eiffel described some of the responses as vraiment curieuse ("truly curious").
Famous visitors to the tower included the Prince of Wales, Sarah Bernhardt, "Buffalo Bill" Cody (his Wild West show was an attraction at the exposition) and Thomas Edison. Eiffel invited Edison to his private apartment at the top of the tower, where Edison presented him with one of his phonographs, a new invention and one of the many highlights of the exposition. Edison signed the guestbook with this message:
To M Eiffel the Engineer the brave builder of so gigantic and original specimen of modern Engineering from one who has the greatest respect and admiration for all Engineers including the Great Engineer the Bon Dieu, Thomas Edison.
Eiffel had a permit for the tower to stand for 20 years. It was to be dismantled in 1909, when its ownership would revert to the City of Paris. The City had planned to tear it down (part of the original contest rules for designing a tower was that it should be easy to dismantle) but as the tower proved to be valuable for radio telegraphy, it was allowed to remain after the expiry of the permit, and from 1910 it also became part of the International Time Service.
Eiffel made use of his apartment at the top of the tower to carry out meteorological observations, and also used the tower to perform experiments on the action of air resistance on falling bodies.
Subsequent events
Eiffel had a permit for the tower to stand for 20 years. It was to be dismantled in 1909, when its ownership would revert to the City of Paris. The city had planned to tear it down (part of the original contest rules for designing a tower was that it should be easy to dismantle) but as the tower proved to be valuable for many innovations in the early 20th century, particularly radio telegraphy, it was allowed to remain after the expiry of the permit, and from 1910 it also became part of the International Time Service.
For the 1900 Exposition Universelle, the lifts in the east and west legs were replaced by lifts running as far as the second level constructed by the French firm Fives-Lille. These had a compensating mechanism to keep the floor level as the angle of ascent changed at the first level, and were driven by a similar hydraulic mechanism as the Otis lifts, although this was situated at the base of the tower. Hydraulic pressure was provided by pressurised accumulators located near this mechanism. At the same time the lift in the north pillar was removed and replaced by a staircase to the first level. The layout of both first and second levels was modified, with the space available for visitors on the second level. The original lift in the south pillar was removed 13 years later.
On 19 October 1901, Alberto Santos-Dumont, flying his No.6 airship, won a 100,000-franc prize offered by Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe for the first person to make a flight from St. Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and back in less than half an hour.
In 1910, Father Theodor Wulf measured radiant energy at the top and bottom of the tower. He found more at the top than expected, incidentally discovering what are known today as cosmic rays. Two years later, on 4 February 1912, Austrian tailor Franz Reichelt died after jumping from the first level of the tower (a height of 57 m) to demonstrate his parachute design. In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, a radio transmitter located in the tower jammed German radio communications, seriously hindering their advance on Paris and contributing to the Allied victory at the First Battle of the Marne. From 1925 to 1934, illuminated signs for Citroën adorned three of the tower's sides, making it the tallest advertising space in the world at the time. In April 1935, the tower was used to make experimental low-resolution television transmissions, using a shortwave transmitter of 200 watts power. On 17 November, an improved 180-line transmitter was installed.
On two separate but related occasions in 1925, the con artist Victor Lustig "sold" the tower for scrap metal. A year later, in February 1926, pilot Leon Collet was killed trying to fly under the tower. His aircraft became entangled in an aerial belonging to a wireless station. A bust of Gustave Eiffel by Antoine Bourdelle was unveiled at the base of the north leg on 2 May 1929. In 1930, the tower lost the title of the world's tallest structure when the Chrysler Building in New York City was completed. In 1938, the decorative arcade around the first level was removed.
Upon the German occupation of Paris in 1940, the lift cables were cut by the French. The tower was closed to the public during the occupation and the lifts were not repaired until 1946. In 1940, German soldiers had to climb the tower to hoist a swastika-centered Reichskriegsflagge, but the flag was so large it blew away just a few hours later, and was replaced by a smaller one. When visiting Paris, Hitler chose to stay on the ground. When the Allies were nearing Paris in August 1944, Hitler ordered General Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, to demolish the tower along with the rest of the city. Von Choltitz disobeyed the order. On 25 August, before the Germans had been driven out of Paris, the German flag was replaced with a Tricolour by two men from the French Naval Museum, who narrowly beat three men led by Lucien Sarniguet, who had lowered the Tricolour on 13 June 1940 when Paris fell to the Germans.
A fire started in the television transmitter on 3 January 1956, damaging the top of the tower. Repairs took a year, and in 1957, the present radio aerial was added to the top. In 1964, the Eiffel Tower was officially declared to be a historical monument by the Minister of Cultural Affairs, André Malraux. A year later, an additional lift system was installed in the north pillar.
According to interviews, in 1967, Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau negotiated a secret agreement with Charles de Gaulle for the tower to be dismantled and temporarily relocated to Montreal to serve as a landmark and tourist attraction during Expo 67. The plan was allegedly vetoed by the company operating the tower out of fear that the French government could refuse permission for the tower to be restored in its original location.
In 1982, the original lifts between the second and third levels were replaced after 97 years in service. These had been closed to the public between November and March because the water in the hydraulic drive tended to freeze. The new cars operate in pairs, with one counterbalancing the other, and perform the journey in one stage, reducing the journey time from eight minutes to less than two minutes. At the same time, two new emergency staircases were installed, replacing the original spiral staircases. In 1983, the south pillar was fitted with an electrically driven Otis lift to serve the Jules Verne restaurant.[citation needed] The Fives-Lille lifts in the east and west legs, fitted in 1899, were extensively refurbished in 1986. The cars were replaced, and a computer system was installed to completely automate the lifts. The motive power was moved from the water hydraulic system to a new electrically driven oil-filled hydraulic system, and the original water hydraulics were retained solely as a counterbalance system. A service lift was added to the south pillar for moving small loads and maintenance personnel three years later.
Robert Moriarty flew a Beechcraft Bonanza under the tower on 31 March 1984. In 1987, A. J. Hackett made one of his first bungee jumps from the top of the Eiffel Tower, using a special cord he had helped develop. Hackett was arrested by the police. On 27 October 1991, Thierry Devaux, along with mountain guide Hervé Calvayrac, performed a series of acrobatic figures while bungee jumping from the second floor of the tower. Facing the Champ de Mars, Devaux used an electric winch between figures to go back up to the second floor. When firemen arrived, he stopped after the sixth jump.
For its "Countdown to the Year 2000" celebration on 31 December 1999, flashing lights and high-powered searchlights were installed on the tower. During the last three minutes of the year, the lights were turned on starting from the base of the tower and continuing to the top to welcome 2000 with a huge fireworks show. An exhibition above a cafeteria on the first floor commemorates this event. The searchlights on top of the tower made it a beacon in Paris's night sky, and 20,000 flashing bulbs gave the tower a sparkly appearance for five minutes every hour on the hour.
The lights sparkled blue for several nights to herald the new millennium on 31 December 2000. The sparkly lighting continued for 18 months until July 2001. The sparkling lights were turned on again on 21 June 2003, and the display was planned to last for 10 years before they needed replacing.
The tower received its 200,000,000th guest on 28 November 2002.The tower has operated at its maximum capacity of about 7 million visitors per year since 2003. In 2004, the Eiffel Tower began hosting a seasonal ice rink on the first level. A glass floor was installed on the first level during the 2014 refurbishment.
Design
The puddle iron (wrought iron) of the Eiffel Tower weighs 7,300 tonnes, and the addition of lifts, shops and antennae have brought the total weight to approximately 10,100 tonnes. As a demonstration of the economy of design, if the 7,300 tonnes of metal in the structure were melted down, it would fill the square base, 125 metres (410 ft) on each side, to a depth of only 6.25 cm (2.46 in) assuming the density of the metal to be 7.8 tonnes per cubic metre. Additionally, a cubic box surrounding the tower (324 m × 125 m × 125 m) would contain 6,200 tonnes of air, weighing almost as much as the iron itself. Depending on the ambient temperature, the top of the tower may shift away from the sun by up to 18 cm (7 in) due to thermal expansion of the metal on the side facing the sun.
Wind and weather considerations
When it was built, many were shocked by the tower's daring form. Eiffel was accused of trying to create something artistic with no regard to the principles of engineering. However, Eiffel and his team – experienced bridge builders – understood the importance of wind forces, and knew that if they were going to build the tallest structure in the world, they had to be sure it could withstand them. In an interview with the newspaper Le Temps published on 14 February 1887, Eiffel said:
Is it not true that the very conditions which give strength also conform to the hidden rules of harmony? ... Now to what phenomenon did I have to give primary concern in designing the Tower? It was wind resistance. Well then! I hold that the curvature of the monument's four outer edges, which is as mathematical calculation dictated it should be ... will give a great impression of strength and beauty, for it will reveal to the eyes of the observer the boldness of the design as a whole.
He used graphical methods to determine the strength of the tower and empirical evidence to account for the effects of wind, rather than a mathematical formula. Close examination of the tower reveals a basically exponential shape.[69] All parts of the tower were overdesigned to ensure maximum resistance to wind forces. The top half was even assumed to have no gaps in the latticework. In the years since it was completed, engineers have put forward various mathematical hypotheses in an attempt to explain the success of the design. The most recent, devised in 2004 after letters sent by Eiffel to the French Society of Civil Engineers in 1885 were translated into English, is described as a non-linear integral equation based on counteracting the wind pressure on any point of the tower with the tension between the construction elements at that point.
The Eiffel Tower sways by up to 9 cm (3.5 in) in the wind.
Ground floor
The four columns of the tower each house access stairs and elevators to the first two floors, while at the south column only the elevator to the second floor restaurant is publicly accessible.
1st floor
The first floor is publicly accessible by elevator or stairs. When originally built, the first level contained three restaurants – one French, one Russian and one Flemish — and an "Anglo-American Bar". After the exposition closed, the Flemish restaurant was converted to a 250-seat theatre. Today there is the Le 58 Tour Eiffel restaurant and other facilities.
2nd floor
The second floor is publicly accessible by elevator or stairs and has a restaurant called Le Jules Verne, a gourmet restaurant with its own lift going up from the south column to the second level. This restaurant has one star in the Michelin Red Guide. It was run by the multi-Michelin star chef Alain Ducasse from 2007 to 2017. As of May 2019, it is managed by three-star chef Frédéric Anton. It owes its name to the famous science-fiction writer Jules Verne.
3rd floor
Originally there were laboratories for various experiments, and a small apartment reserved for Gustave Eiffel to entertain guests, which is now open to the public, complete with period decorations and lifelike mannequins of Eiffel and some of his notable guests.
From 1937 until 1981, there was a restaurant near the top of the tower. It was removed due to structural considerations; engineers had determined it was too heavy and was causing the tower to sag. This restaurant was sold to an American restaurateur and transported to New York and then New Orleans. It was rebuilt on the edge of New Orleans' Garden District as a restaurant and later event hall. Today there is a champagne bar.
Lifts
The arrangement of the lifts has been changed several times during the tower's history. Given the elasticity of the cables and the time taken to align the cars with the landings, each lift, in normal service, takes an average of 8 minutes and 50 seconds to do the round trip, spending an average of 1 minute and 15 seconds at each level. The average journey time between levels is 1 minute. The original hydraulic mechanism is on public display in a small museum at the base of the east and west legs. Because the mechanism requires frequent lubrication and maintenance, public access is often restricted. The rope mechanism of the north tower can be seen as visitors exit the lift.
Equipping the tower with adequate and safe passenger lifts was a major concern of the government commission overseeing the Exposition. Although some visitors could be expected to climb to the first level, or even the second, lifts clearly had to be the main means of ascent.
Constructing lifts to reach the first level was relatively straightforward: the legs were wide enough at the bottom and so nearly straight that they could contain a straight track, and a contract was given to the French company Roux, Combaluzier & Lepape for two lifts to be fitted in the east and west legs. Roux, Combaluzier & Lepape used a pair of endless chains with rigid, articulated links to which the car was attached. Lead weights on some links of the upper or return sections of the chains counterbalanced most of the car's weight. The car was pushed up from below, not pulled up from above: to prevent the chain buckling, it was enclosed in a conduit. At the bottom of the run, the chains passed around 3.9 m (12 ft 10 in) diameter sprockets. Smaller sprockets at the top guided the chains.
The Otis lifts originally fitted in the north and south legs
Installing lifts to the second level was more of a challenge because a straight track was impossible. No French company wanted to undertake the work. The European branch of Otis Brothers & Company submitted a proposal but this was rejected: the fair's charter ruled out the use of any foreign material in the construction of the tower. The deadline for bids was extended but still no French companies put themselves forward, and eventually the contract was given to Otis in July 1887. Otis were confident they would eventually be given the contract and had already started creating designs.
The car was divided into two superimposed compartments, each holding 25 passengers, with the lift operator occupying an exterior platform on the first level. Motive power was provided by an inclined hydraulic ram 12.67 m (41 ft 7 in) long and 96.5 cm (38.0 in) in diameter in the tower leg with a stroke of 10.83 m (35 ft 6 in): this moved a carriage carrying six sheaves. Five fixed sheaves were mounted higher up the leg, producing an arrangement similar to a block and tackle but acting in reverse, multiplying the stroke of the piston rather than the force generated. The hydraulic pressure in the driving cylinder was produced by a large open reservoir on the second level. After being exhausted from the cylinder, the water was pumped back up to the reservoir by two pumps in the machinery room at the base of the south leg. This reservoir also provided power to the lifts to the first level.
The original lifts for the journey between the second and third levels were supplied by Léon Edoux. A pair of 81 m (266 ft) hydraulic rams were mounted on the second level, reaching nearly halfway up to the third level. One lift car was mounted on top of these rams: cables ran from the top of this car up to sheaves on the third level and back down to a second car. Each car travelled only half the distance between the second and third levels and passengers were required to change lifts halfway by means of a short gangway. The 10-ton cars each held 65 passengers.
Engraved names
Gustave Eiffel engraved on the tower the names of 72 French scientists, engineers and mathematicians in recognition of their contributions to the building of the tower. Eiffel chose this "invocation of science" because of his concern over the artists' protest. At the beginning of the 20th century, the engravings were painted over, but they were restored in 1986–87 by the Société Nouvelle d'exploitation de la Tour Eiffel, a company operating the tower.
Aesthetics
The tower is painted in three shades: lighter at the top, getting progressively darker towards the bottom to complement the Parisian sky. It was originally reddish brown; this changed in 1968 to a bronze colour known as "Eiffel Tower Brown". In what is expected to be a temporary change, the tower is being painted gold in commemoration of the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
The only non-structural elements are the four decorative grill-work arches, added in Sauvestre's sketches, which served to make the tower look more substantial and to make a more impressive entrance to the exposition.
A pop-culture movie cliché is that the view from a Parisian window always includes the tower. In reality, since zoning restrictions limit the height of most buildings in Paris to seven storeys, only a small number of tall buildings have a clear view of the tower.
Maintenance
Maintenance of the tower includes applying 60 tons of paint every seven years to prevent it from rusting. The tower has been completely repainted at least 19 times since it was built. Lead paint was still being used as recently as 2001 when the practice was stopped out of concern for the environment.
Communications
The tower has been used for making radio transmissions since the beginning of the 20th century. Until the 1950s, sets of aerial wires ran from the cupola to anchors on the Avenue de Suffren and Champ de Mars. These were connected to longwave transmitters in small bunkers. In 1909, a permanent underground radio centre was built near the south pillar, which still exists today. On 20 November 1913, the Paris Observatory, using the Eiffel Tower as an aerial, exchanged wireless signals with the United States Naval Observatory, which used an aerial in Arlington County, Virginia. The object of the transmissions was to measure the difference in longitude between Paris and Washington, D.C. Today, radio and digital television signals are transmitted from the Eiffel Tower.
Digital television
A television antenna was first installed on the tower in 1957, increasing its height by 18.7 m (61 ft). Work carried out in 2000 added a further 5.3 m (17 ft), giving the current height of 324 m (1,063 ft).[59] Analogue television signals from the Eiffel Tower ceased on 8 March 2011.
Taller structures
The Eiffel Tower was the world's tallest structure when completed in 1889, a distinction it retained until 1929 when the Chrysler Building in New York City was topped out. The tower also lost its standing as the world's tallest tower to the Tokyo Tower in 1958 but retains its status as the tallest freestanding (non-guyed) structure in France.
Transport
The nearest Paris Métro station is Bir-Hakeim and the nearest RER station is Champ de Mars-Tour Eiffel. The tower itself is located at the intersection of the quai Branly and the Pont d'Iéna.
Popularity
Number of visitors per year between 1889 and 2004
More than 300 million people have visited the tower since it was completed in 1889. In 2015, there were 6.91 million visitors. The tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world. An average of 25,000 people ascend the tower every day (which can result in long queues).
Illumination copyright
The tower and its image have been in the public domain since 1993, 70 years after Eiffel's death. In June 1990 a French court ruled that a special lighting display on the tower in 1989 to mark the tower's 100th anniversary was an "original visual creation" protected by copyright. The Court of Cassation, France's judicial court of last resort, upheld the ruling in March 1992. The Société d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE) now considers any illumination of the tower to be a separate work of art that falls under copyright. As a result, the SNTE alleges that it is illegal to publish contemporary photographs of the lit tower at night without permission in France and some other countries for commercial use. For this reason, it is often rare to find images or videos of the lit tower at night on stock image sites, and media outlets rarely broadcast images or videos of it.
The imposition of copyright has been controversial. The Director of Documentation for what was then called the Société Nouvelle d'exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SNTE), Stéphane Dieu, commented in 2005: "It is really just a way to manage commercial use of the image, so that it isn't used in ways [of which] we don't approve". SNTE made over €1 million from copyright fees in 2002. However, it could also be used to restrict the publication of tourist photographs of the tower at night, as well as hindering non-profit and semi-commercial publication of images of the illuminated tower.
The copyright claim itself has never been tested in courts to date, according to a 2014 article in the Art Law Journal, and there has never been an attempt to track down millions of people who have posted and shared their images of the illuminated tower on the Internet worldwide. It added, however, that permissive situation may arise on commercial use of such images, like in a magazine, on a film poster, or on product packaging.
French doctrine and jurisprudence allows pictures incorporating a copyrighted work as long as their presence is incidental or accessory to the subject being represented, a reasoning akin to the de minimis rule. Therefore, SETE may be unable to claim copyright on photographs of Paris which happen to include the lit tower.
Replicas
As one of the most famous landmarks in the world, the Eiffel Tower has been the inspiration for the creation of many replicas and similar towers. An early example is Blackpool Tower in England. The mayor of Blackpool, Sir John Bickerstaffe, was so impressed on seeing the Eiffel Tower at the 1889 exposition that he commissioned a similar tower to be built in his town. It opened in 1894 and is 158.1 m (519 ft) tall. Tokyo Tower in Japan, built as a communications tower in 1958, was also inspired by the Eiffel Tower.[111]
There are various scale models of the tower in the United States, including a half-scale version at the Paris Las Vegas, Nevada, one in Paris, Texas built in 1993, and two 1:3 scale models at Kings Island, located in Mason, Ohio, and Kings Dominion, Virginia, amusement parks opened in 1972 and 1975 respectively. Two 1:3 scale models can be found in China, one in Durango, Mexico that was donated by the local French community, and several across Europe.
In 2011, the TV show Pricing the Priceless on the National Geographic Channel speculated that a full-size replica of the tower would cost approximately US$480 million to build. This would be more than ten times the cost of the original (nearly 8 million in 1890 Francs; ~US$40 million in 2018 dollars).
The Rolex Learning Centre ("EPFL Learning Centre") is the campus hub and library for the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), in Lausanne, Switzerland. Designed by the winners of 2010 Pritzker Prize, Japanese-duo SANAA, it opened on 22 February 2010.
Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, partners of the Tokyo-based design firm SANAA, were selected as the lead architects in EPFL's international competition of December 2004. The team was selected among famous architects and even some Pritzker Prize Laureates such as Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Jean Nouvel, Herzog & de Meuron, Ábalos & Herreros and Xaveer De Geyter.
The construction took place between 2007 and 2009. It cost 110 million Swiss francs and was funded by the Swiss government as well as by private sponsors (Rolex, Logitech, Bouygues Construction, Crédit Suisse, Nestlé, Novartis and SICPA).
The building opened on 22 February 2010 and was inaugurated on 27 May 2010. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolex_Learning_Center
Répétition générale du défilé du 14 juillet 2022 pour les élèves de l'Ecole polytechnique promotion X21
© Ecole polytechnique / Institut Polytechnique de Paris / J.Barande