The Construction of the Eiffel Tower

The work started on July 1st, 1887 to end twenty-one months later.

All the elements were prepared in Eiffel’s factory in Levallois-Perret, on the outskirts of Paris. Each of the 18,000 pieces used to construct the Tower was specifically designed and calculated, traced out to an accuracy of a tenth of a millimetre and then put together to form new pieces, each measuring around five metres.

All the metallic pieces on the Tower were fixed by rivet, this was a well known technique at the time of the construction.

First, the pieces were assembled on site using bolts, later to be replaced one by one with thermally assembled rivets, which contracted during cooling thus ensuring a very tight fit.

A team of four men was needed for each rivet assembled: one to heat it up, another to hold it in place, a third to shape the head and a fourth to beat it with a sledgehammer. Only a third of the 2,500,000 rivets used in the construction of the Tower were inserted directly on site.

The journalist Emile Goudeau described the construction site at the beginning of 1889 accordingly: “A thick cloud of tar and coal smoke seized the throat, and we were deafened by the din of metal screaming beneath the hammer.  Over there, ..."

"... they were still working on the bolts: workmen with their iron bludgeons, perched on a ledge just a few centimetres wide, took turns at striking the bolts (these in fact were the rivets). One could have taken them for blacksmiths contentedly beating out a rhythm on an anvil in some village forge, except ..."

"... that these smiths were not striking up and down vertically, but horizontally, and as with each blow came a shower of sparks, these black figures, appearing larger than life against the background of the open sky, looked as if they were reaping lightning bolts in the clouds.”

It took just two years, two months and five days to build the Eiffel Tower. Construction work began in January 1887 and was finished on 31 March 1889.

A record speed considering the rudimentary means available at that time. The assembly of the Tower was a marvel of precision, as all the chroniclers of the period agreed.

On the narrow platform at the top, Gustave Eiffel was awarded the Légion d'Honneur.

The Tower's construction in a few figures: 18,038 metal parts ; 5,300 workshop drawings ; 50 engineers and draughtsmen ; 150 workers employed at the Levallois-Perret factory ; between 150 and 300 workers on the construction site ; 2,500,000 rivets ; 7,300 tonnes of iron ; 60 tonnes of paint.