All language subtitles for Eiffel Tower - Building the Impossible

HORNS HONK

A majestic presence has towered over
Paris for more than 130 years.

A symbol of progress
and of breaking boundaries,

France's "Iron Lady"
is a global icon.

In 1889, Gustave Eiffel
achieved the impossible.

The dream of every engineer -

to build the tallest tower
in the world.

In the heart of Paris, he raised
this 7,300-tonne iron colossus

in just two years, two months
and five days.

But this tower could not
have existed

without the engineering innovations
of the three preceding decades

and Gustave Eiffel's other work,
found all over the world.

From the bridges of Vietnam
to the sweeping Garabit viaduct,

Bordeaux's rivers, to the secrets
of New York's Statue of Liberty,

the Eiffel Tower is
the crowning glory of a life spent

pushing back limits.

What challenges -
both human and technical -

did Eiffel and his engineers face
with such a massive project?

And how did his scientific
research help Eiffel

save the tower from destruction?

This is the epic story
of France's Iron Lady.

WIND WHISTLES

On the 31st of March 1889,
Gustave Eiffel refused to allow

anyone else to unfurl the French
flag at the top of his tower.

Aged nearly 60,

he faced the ever-changing winds
of an icy winter

to mark the completion of his
greatest masterpiece,

300m over Paris.

The Eiffel Tower was born
out of the Industrial Revolution,

the age of iron and coal.

The plentiful supply of coal
in Great Britain,

where everything started at the end
of the 18th century,

changed the world -

along with revolutionary
inventions like the steam engine,

the railway and the steel industry.

One foundation technology
of the Industrial Revolution was

a type of wrought iron called
puddled iron.

Strong yet flexible,
it was obtained by melting iron ore

and introducing oxygen
until it was decarbonised.

In the 1850s, the production
of puddled iron boomed

with the mechanisation of the blast
furnace.

In France, a flurry of forges

and metal construction companies
emerged.

One of these firms was founded
in 1864

by the 32-year-old engineer
Gustave Eiffel.

TRANSLATED FROM FRENCH:

Since the beginning
of the 19th century,

architects had dreamed of exceeding
the Gothic cathedrals

and the Egyptian pyramids.

Two projects for 300m-high towers
had emerged in England

and the United States,
but neither was completed.

Two prominent engineers
from the Eiffel company,

Emile Nouguier and Maurice Koechlin,

were also tempted by the idea
of building a 300m tower.

But how to go about it?

Using the hallmark iron construction
techniques of the Eiffel company,

Koechlin and Nouguier came up
with a pylon design.

Eiffel was not impressed.

For art historian
Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby,

the yearning for the gigantic
fits the historical context

of the 19th century.

Rise of capitalism, rise of empire,

rise of nationalist rivalries,
all of that feeds

the kind of competition
to prove one's modernity,

efficiency, capacity,
um, to astonish people

with the surprises of things
like the Eiffel Tour.

It was the in-house architect,
Stephen Sauvestre,

who won Eiffel over to the project,

gracing the pylon with decorative
arches

and adding platforms
to welcome the public.

He transformed the unattractive
pylon into an elegant monument.

Eiffel saw that a revolutionary
tower could be the main attraction

of the 1889 World's Fair in Paris

and committed himself
to the project.

A fabulous 300m iron tower,

from which people could admire
the city of Paris.

The Eiffel Tower project was born.

The tower would be higher than
Notre Dame, the pyramids of Egypt

and almost twice as high
as the Washington Monument,

which held the world record at 169m.

Many feared that, at 300m,

the wind would be destructive.

How would the engineers ensure

that their tower could withstand
high winds?

Gustave Eiffel built this
facility in Paris

towards the end of his life -

an aerodynamics laboratory,
which is still in use.

This is where Benoit Roman,
an expert in structural mechanics,

is comparing the effect of wind
on models of the Eiffel Tower

and a tower with straight sides.

WHIRRING

Why is the Eiffel Tower model
much better at resisting wind

than the other model?

One of Eiffel's most impressive
earlier achievements is

this magnificent railway bridge
in Auvergne, in central France.

The Garabit viaduct was
opened in 1884,

just as the project for the
Eiffel Tower was being conceived.

Standing 120m
above the Truyere river,

it connects the two sides
of the valley with a parabolic arch

of unprecedented length...

..165m - a record for the time.

Patricia Vergne Roches is an expert
in the history of the bridge.

The metallic structure is a fabulous
weblike arrangement of iron beams.

For Eiffel and his engineers,

every bridge was a chance to
introduce technical improvements.

A parabolic shape would be
better able

to resist the forces produced
by heavy trains.

The organisational expertise needed
on site testifies

to the technical know-how
and talent of Eiffel's company.

The perfectly mastered completion
of this civil engineering work,

to worldwide admiration,

was key to the success
of the 300m tower project.

With the Garabit viaduct
works behind them,

the Eiffel team could now focus

on building the highest monument
in the world.

In June 1884,
Eiffel, Koechlin, Nouguier

and Sauvestre exhibited a model
at the Decorative Arts Exhibition.

Building a needle in the heart
of Paris caught the imagination

of the French Minister of Trade,
Edouard Lockroy,

who was looking
for a revolutionary idea

to boost the forthcoming
World's Fair in 1889.

What better choice than
a record-breaking monument?

The publicity for Paris

and the very young Third Republic
would be global.

The 300m tower would be
topped by a beacon...

..like another monument intended to
enlighten the world,

which also owes a lot
to Eiffel's genius.

In 1879, Gustave Eiffel was involved

in the construction
of a remarkable work,

Liberty Enlightening The World,
which would later become

the Statue of Liberty.

The sculpture,
by Auguste Bartholdi,

was a gift from the Republic
of France to the American people

to mark the centenary
of their independence.

The tallest statue in the world,
at 92m, including its pedestal,

was another artistic and technical
challenge on an unprecedented scale.

The statue and its structure crossed
the Atlantic in 210 special crates.

Sited at the entrance
of New York Harbor,

it would become an undisputed symbol
of the city.

It is 6am.

Before opening
to the 20,000 daily visitors,

ranger Matthew Housch climbs up
into the heart of the statue.

This 162-step staircase gives
an insight into Eiffel's structure.

The similarities with the tower
are clear.

What's most impressive about the
interior of the Statue of Liberty

is how all of this iron
and steel works together to hold

her over 300ft
above New York Harbor.

Over 100 years of wind and rain,

she still stands
because of this interior structure.

The inside of the Statue of Liberty
can be a disorienting place,

but what you are seeing are hundreds
of copper plates -

so that's the dark metal that you
see all along the interior here -

that's her skin.

And those copper plates were all
riveted together with

thousands of little copper rivets,

but the copper skin has to be
held up,

so you can see there's thousands
of steel bars

connect the copper plates
to the secondary iron bars,

and all of those iron bars connect
back here to these iron pylons.

The iron structure designed by
Eiffel's engineers accommodates

this staircase
up to Miss Liberty's crown

and its unique view of New York.

This view became popular over time

and, as visitors keep coming
into the Statue of Liberty,

the Statue of Liberty becomes
the Statue of Liberty.

She becomes an icon that represents
not just New York City,

but the United States herself.

Thanks to its impressive structure,

the Statue of Liberty has
withstood the test of time.

Since its inauguration in 1886,

it has given New York
a unique identity.

Its universal appeal
reflected on Gustave Eiffel.

But, despite this resounding
success, his project for the 300m

Paris tower had stalled

for lack of a firm government
commitment.

Fortunately, Gustave Eiffel was
a shrewd businessman,

winning orders in South America,
Portugal, the Philippines,

and the French colonies of
Indochina.

The Eiffel company could afford to
wait out the bureaucratic delays

of the French government.

It is in Vietnam that Eiffel built
the greatest number of structures.

The Pont Des Messageries
in Ho Chi Minh City is well known.

But dozens of portable bridges,

exported by Eiffel to Vietnam,
are now lost.

The old city once boasted
100 of them.

The Vietnam War and rampant
urbanisation

have probably destroyed most
of Eiffel's portable bridges.

But after studying satellite images
of the city,

Bertrand Lemoine is convinced that
some of them might still be in use.

Another bridge of the same type
has been spotted.

Back in Paris, Gustave Eiffel could
count on the unfailing

support of the French Minister
of Trade.

Edouard Lockroy had launched
a competition,

inviting submissions
for the 1889 World's Fair.

Among other projects,
"Contestants shall study

"the possibility of erecting an iron
tower on the Champ-de-Mars."

It so happened that the specified
dimensions were exactly those

of Eiffel's design.

Candidates only had 15 days to
submit their designs.

After months of struggle,
Eiffel had won.

He would have his tower
and he would finance it himself.

At the company's headquarters
in Levallois-Perret,

engineers and draughtsmen feverishly
started work.

The World's Fair would open
on 6th May 1889,

giving them two years and two months
to build the tower.

The countdown had begun.

Every part of the tower was
calculated

to one-tenth of a millimetre.

More than 5,000 drawings were
produced by this office.

7,300 tonnes of iron were ordered

and, barely 20 days after
the concession was signed,

on 27th January 1887,

the first earthworks began on the
vast cleared expanse

of the Champ de Mars.

Using shovels and pickaxes,

400 workers laboured for nine hours
a day to dig four huge holes.

Rubble was disposed
of in wheelbarrows,

horse-drawn carts and minecarts.

The four legs of the tower had to be
anchored deep in the ground.

31,000 cubic metres of earth,
a volume equivalent

to ten Olympic-sized swimming pools,

were removed using rudimentary
methods.

This stage of the works was
essential to ensure

the stability of the tower.

The first problem came two weeks
after work started.

Well-known artists published a
petition against the Eiffel Tower

in the influential daily Le Temps,
under editor Adrien Hebrard.

They protested against the erection

of "the useless
and monstrous Eiffel Tower".

Eiffel's counterattack was scathing
and inspired.

"Because we are engineers, do people
think that we are not preoccupied

"by beauty in our constructions

"and that, although we build them
sturdy and durable,

"we do not also strive
to make them elegant?"

On site, the works were under way.

The foundations on the banks
of the Seine lay 7m

below river level,
so could easily flood.

How would Eiffel overcome
this obstacle?

He called on the know-how he'd
acquired

30 years earlier in Bordeaux,
when, as a young engineer

fresh out of the Ecole Centrale,
an elite engineering school,

he led the construction of his
first major iron structure,

a 504m-long railway viaduct linking
the two banks of the River Garonne,

which is very wide at that point.

This impressive structure
almost disappeared

when the modern bridge rendered it
obsolete.

Gustave Eiffel's descendant,
Myriam Larnaudie-Eiffel,

helped save this iron masterpiece.

SHE GASPS

It is the longest iron bridge ever
built in France

and still makes the Eiffel family
proud.

Eiffel's youthful leadership skills
helped solve

this major technical challenge,

digging riverbed foundations
for the six pairs of bridge piers.

How could anyone build such massive
foundations 10m underwater?

But when the compressed air chambers
were used 30 years later

to dig the tower's
foundations near the Seine,

workers in the pressurised section
experienced problems.

Press reports led to a public outcry
and, once again,

Eiffel relied on Minister Lockroy
to subdue this new protest.

He summoned the press to the
construction site.

Work resumed immediately.

Soon, solid foundations were ready
to support the metal structure.

The iron elements were cut,
trimmed, adjusted

and drilled to the exact
measurements set out in the plans.

Once on site,
they had to fit together perfectly.

The Eiffel construction method
made it possible to

build at an amazing pace.

Six months after
the start of construction,

four 54-degree inclined pillars
rose from the ground.

There were very few workers
on site - barely 250 -

but they were very efficient.

Progress was impressive -
the metallic structure rising fast

to the incessant beat of the
riveters' hammers.

But how were the parts
assembled on the building site?

In Gonesse, north of Paris,
one business still employs

the efficient riveting assembly
process used by the Eiffel company.

In this workshop, Eiffel-style beams
are produced

to restore old structures.

OK.

MACHINE THUDS AND WHIRS

At the time of the tower's
construction,

there were no pneumatic tools.

Riveting was carried out on site
by teams of four workers.

The first makes the rivet white hot
in a brazier.

The second positions it
in the assembly hole.

The third holds the rivet head while
the fourth hammers it in place.

As it cools, the rivet contracts,
holding the parts firmly together.

A total of two and a half million
rivets were set on the Eiffel Tower,

half of them on site,

sometimes in highly acrobatic
and even dangerous conditions.

No lives were lost during the main
construction phase of the project,

but one Italian worker,
Angelo Scagliotti,

died after the tower's inauguration.

As the structure grew,
so did the challenges.

How do you lift thousands of tonnes
of iron

to heights of 100, 200
and then 300m?

Eiffel came up with a solution,

using mobile steam cranes
in each of the tower's legs.

The greatest challenge facing the
engineers was securing horizontal

beams to the four inclined legs to
create a first floor platform.

The position of the four
700-tonne pillars

had to be millimetre perfect.

The tower was standing by itself.

They had done it.

To Eiffel's great relief,
the complex operation was complete.

But January 1888 was a hard month.

Winter slowed down their progress
and the second

and third levels were still
to be built.

Another 250m were required to
reach the magical 300m height.

With only 15 months left,
time was running out.

That same year, another ambitious
engineering project was

making headlines in Paris.

There was bad news from Panama,

where French entrepreneur
Ferdinand de Lesseps was digging

a canal without locks to connect
the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Disaster upon disaster had left it
considerably behind schedule.

The Panama Canal, organised by
Lesseps,

who again I emphasise was not
an engineer,

was such a failure and entailed

such loss of life,

and as people...you know,

it entailed trying to cut through
a mountain,

and that mountain kept having
mudslides.

It was a disaster.

Finally,
and one billion gold francs later,

the Lesseps version of the canal,
without locks, had to be abandoned.

And the Panama Interoceanic Company,
the pride of France,

funded by thousands of small
investors, had to be salvaged.

Many saw Eiffel as the man to turn
this disaster into a triumph.

Boosted by progress on the tower,
Eiffel agreed

to take on the most gigantic civil
engineering project of his times.

For the astronomical amount
of 100 million francs -

more than 15 times the Eiffel
Tower's construction cost -

he was contracted to build
ten giant canal locks.

He agrees to make those locks
at a great cost to Lesseps.

Eiffel will reap great rewards

and he needs those, I believe,
to build the Eiffel Tower.

I believe that the Panama Canal
project is partly funding

the Eiffel Tower itself.

Eiffel had to take charge
of the construction site,

direct the gigantic earthworks,

manufacture 20 enormous lock gates
of his own design,

then ship them to Panama
and deliver the work,

all before the concession expired
in 1890.

He now had two races
against the clock.

The Eiffel company was working
at full capacity.

On 4th July 1888, a party was in
full swing

on the tower's first level.

Gustave Eiffel had organised
a banquet to celebrate

American Independence Day.

The first level of the tower
was decked out

in the colours of the two nations.

In the middle, a table had been set
up to welcome the press.

Over 40 journalists and foreign
correspondents had made the ascent

to the first floor.

But, six months before the scheduled
completion date,

the site's machinery ground
to a halt.

On 19th September 1888,
most of the workers went on strike.

Of the 140 riveters,
fitters and carpenters,

only 27 showed up for work.

Construction couldn't continue.

Eiffel quickly did the calculations.

The tower might not be completed
in time for the World's Fair.

He met their demands.

By November 1888,

Eiffel and his team were
all smiles again.

The tower had become the tallest
building on Earth - 170m -

one metre higher than the
Washington Monument's stone obelisk.

Progress would now be faster.

The structure was thinner
and required fewer parts.

One metre was being added every day.

By 15th March 1889,
the third level was almost complete.

But there was still
the paintwork to finish

and the lifts to install, which was
turning into a major headache.

The tower's lifts, a crucial
part of the visitor experience,

represented a technological
leap forward.

Transporting the public to a height
of 300m was a new challenge

and new machinery
had to be invented to meet it.

Stephane Rosec
is in charge of the lifts.

His workplace is worthy
of a novel by Jules Verne.

The key to producing the energy
needed to raise

the lifts to the first
and then the second level is

hydraulic pressure.

This hydraulic pressure pushes
an imposing 16m-long jack.

In turn, it drives a rail-mounted
carriage, which operates

a set of pulleys that raises the
elevator car up to the second level.

When the piston travels one metre,

this system of pulley cables moves
the cabin 8m.

But on the 31st March 1889,
the lifts were not ready

and Gustave Eiffel had to climb
the stairs to raise the French flag.

WIND WHISTLES

A few daring climbers braved
the heights to accompany him.

This beautiful open structure had
been completed in record time.

Well, almost.

The lifts were not yet working
and the paintwork was unfinished.

The Eiffel Tower has received
19 coats of paint

since its construction,
an average of one every seven years,

as prescribed by Gustave Eiffel
himself, to protect it from rust.

From one painting campaign
to the next,

the tower's colours have changed.

Very bright at the time
of the World's Fair,

they have since become much darker.

The tower has been repainted
19 times.

It is now time for a fresh coat.

Pierre-Antoine Gatier is in charge.

The yellow-brown paint is the same
colour chosen by Eiffel in 1907,

when the tower acquired
permanent status.

The tower is repainted
by rope access,

using tools such as the mop -
an angled brush

similar to those originally used by
the Eiffel company workers.

It takes several years
to apply the 60 tonnes of paint

to cover the surface of the tower
using this technique.

In Paris, after more than two
years of dizzying construction work,

the big day arrived.

Parisians and visitors
flocked into the city.

On 6th May 1889, after a race
against the clock,

the French President, Sadi Carnot,

opened the World's Fair
with the utmost solemnity.

The triumph of iron was complete.

The World's Fair was then opened to
the public, who arrived in droves,

thanks, in part, to a railway line
specially built for the occasion.

Contrary to some of the artists'
predictions,

the sight was priceless.

FANFARE PLAYS

On the evening of 6th May 1889,
there was a grand celebration...

..and the tower unveiled her lights
for the first time.

Boats on the Seine were
festooned with lanterns.

Orchestras played
late into the night.

The special day of inauguration
ended

with a suitably festive climax.

The Universal Expo World's Fair was
a huge success,

attracting 32 million visitors
between May and October 1889.

Over the same period of time,
Monsieur Eiffel's tower,

the undisputed star of the fair,
sold over two million tickets -

a resounding success.

But, despite Eiffel's star shining
so brightly,

the year 1892 turned
into a nightmare.

He was caught up in an enormous
scandal that shook French society.

The bankruptcy of the company
that built the Panama Canal,

headed by the famous
Charles de Lesseps.

Thousands of small investors were
ruined -

some committed suicide.

The scandal revealed the corruption
of members of parliament

from every party.

Eiffel, too, was a suspect.

On 10th January, after a two-year
investigation,

the trial of the directors of the
Panama Interoceanic Company

opened in Paris.

Facing the judges
at the Higher Appeals Court,

the defendants include
Charles de Lesseps,

along with his father,
Ferdinand de Lesseps,

two other company directors
and Eiffel.

They had to answer charges of
complicity in fraud

and breach of trust.

At first, Eiffel was convinced
he would be exonerated.

But a month later, although defended
by a brilliant lawyer,

he was sentenced to two years
in prison and fined 20,000 francs.

He was discredited
and his reputation shattered.

For Eiffel, it was a humiliation.

The tower was also going
through a rough patch.

Visitors were deserting it
and the scandal didn't help.

What would become of the monument as
the date approached

for the World's Fair in 1900,
also taking place in Paris?

Transformation projects emerged,

maliciously proposing to turn
the tower into an improbable rock,

or a giant belfry topped by a clock,

or a kind of Mesopotamian ziggurat.

Eiffel dismissed these projects as
distortions of his tower.

What he really wanted was

to transform it into a palace
of electricity.

The investment would have been
enormous,

but the tower would essentially be
preserved in its original form.

JAUNTY PIANO MUSIC

The 1900 fair was much larger than
that of 1889,

and its centre was no longer on the
Champ de Mars,

but closer to Les Invalides
and the Place de la Concorde,

where a spectacular gateway had
been placed.

As a result, the tower found
itself on the sidelines,

and the modernisation work carried
out to improve the lifts

and install electricity was not
enough to rekindle public interest.

Once the 1900 World's Fair was
over,

ideas emerged to transform
the Champ de Mars again,

this time into a large park.

Eiffel was worried.

He looked for ways to preserve
the tower

and make it a lasting fixture
in the Parisian landscape.

It would be the last battle
of his life.

With his mind increasingly
focused on science, he foresaw

the importance of wireless radio,
which required very high antennas.

He understood the role
the tower could play

in the development
of wireless telegraphy.

In December 1903,
he decided to turn to the army.

His proposal received a cool
reception at the ministry,

except from a brilliant young
engineer, Captain Ferrie,

who was looking to develop
wireless telegraphy.

Ferrie obtained authorisation
from the army

to install a wireless station
at the Eiffel Tower.

Gustave Eiffel paid for huts to host
a transmitter on the Champ de Mars.

The tower was equipped with
an extraordinary antenna

made of four steel cables.

This antenna was constantly
evolving.

The Iron Lady ended up being rigged
with 360m cables.

One year before its concession was
due to end in 1909,

it had become a strategic tool
for national defence.

The tower was saved from destruction
and the concession was extended.

It was a cold day in Paris
when Gustave Eiffel died,

on 27th December 1923,
at the age of 91,

one year after the inauguration
of Radio Tour Eiffel.

Le Matin paid him tribute,

"A great Frenchman, whose name is
famous the world over,

"has just died."

Gustave had left his tower
without a protector.

A few years later, the Eiffel Tower
lost its 41-year record

as the world's tallest building.

In quick succession, two
New York skyscrapers overtook it.

The Chrysler Building
at 319m in 1930,

followed by the famous
Empire State Building in 1931,

which topped out at 381m.

The Eiffel Tower in so many ways is
surpassed by skyscrapers,

the building of taller and taller
structures,

especially in the United States,

and I think there is a way
that, in terms of appreciating

its longevity, one has to understand

that what began as unforeseen,

modern construction, so bold,
so geometric, so nonfigurative,

at some point transforms
into a certain quaintness...

..a certain nostalgia for
a 19th century

that has been so surpassed
by the 20th.

The Eiffel Tower still stands,

not just for Paris
but for 19th-century Paris.

Now in the hands
of the City of Paris,

this 19th-century monument renews
itself constantly

to retain its glamour.

In 1985, 336 sodium lamps were
installed inside the structure.

Then a network of LED bulbs was
added all over the outer surface

to create a sparkling effect
that has delighted visitors

since the turn of the millennium.

Its nocturnal aura has been further
enhanced in the early 21st century

by the installation of a new beacon

that casts a spectacular beam
through the Parisian night sky.

This powerful spotlight no longer
signals the tower to aircraft,

since the Paris skies have been
closed to them.

It now shines out over
the French capital and its suburbs

for the pleasure of all.

For over 30 years, the brilliant
Gustave Eiffel

and his eccentric Iron Lady went
through uncertain times,

but, together, they worked wonders,

and have made Paris a magnet for
travellers from all over the world.

During World War I,
wireless telegraphy saved France

from defeat
by thwarting German attacks.

Nowadays, nothing is too daring
for it to please the crowds

on special popular celebrations
like Bastille Day.

A visionary work and the adventure
of a lifetime for its creator,

the Eiffel Tower has never ceased
to reinvent itself.