SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
France: It measures 324 meters in height, weighs 7,300 tons and attracts more than seven million visitors each year: the Eiffel Tower, strongly contested during its construction, has become the symbol of Paris, which is celebrating its 130th anniversary this year.
This property of the City of Paris celebrated all over the world has not always been liked: its construction was accompanied by a "huge controversy, complaints and petitions" of opponents, says the deputy in charge of culture at the city hall of Paris, Christophe Girard.
On the occasion of the Universal Exhibition of 1889, which marked the centenary of the French Revolution, a great competition was launched, won by the industrialist Gustave Eiffel, much to the chagrin of many artists of the time including the writer Guy de Maupassant.
Built in two years, two months and five days, the one based on more than 18,000 pieces of iron is the symbol of a "technical and architectural performance". In the nineteenth century, "it is the symbol of a France that catches up with its industrial power" and becomes "the highlight of the 1889 exhibition," said Bertrand Lemoine, architect and historian.
https://www.asianage.com/life/travel/150519/130th-anniversary-of-the-eiffel-tower.html
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 17 2019, @07:43PM (3 children)
Got to Paris with the schoolmates. One and a half hour just to get near the center, I can't imagine what it is like now, being culturally enriched.
Finally, the tower.
WOW! said absolutely nobody. An industrial looking thing with no architectural context whatsoever.
Paris by day sucks. By night it is quite better looking, but it's like saying a girl looks better with makeup. Overrated like everything French (except the prostitutes).
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Friday May 17 2019, @09:13PM (1 child)
It's highly overrated, that's so true. Has a good steak joint and that's about all there is to it. Trump Tower Chicago is much taller. Much bigger on the inside -- 2,600,000 square feet. And much more beautiful -- MASSIVE CURB APPEAL!!!! 401nwabashave.com [401nwabashave.com]
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday May 18 2019, @02:30AM
Jew-bastards! Amerika Uber Alles!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday May 18 2019, @08:37PM
I have to agree with you. The Eiffel Tower is iconic. There's no doubt about that. But it's not beautiful like the Hagia Sophia or epic like the St. Louis arch. You don't sit there and admire it. It's a box you check, and then move on.
Paris at large is rather like that, too. It's provincial, not dynamic. The place shuts down at 10pm, for chrissake. Its Beaux Arts apartment blocks are charming for all of 5 minutes before they disappear into tedium. Its avenues are broad and straight and long, but go nowhere of real interest. Its transit system is byzantine, broken, and reeks of urine. The people are prissy and ridiculously mistaken about their standing in the cultural hierarchy of mankind. Also, hordes of perpetually rioting Algerians don't add to the city's curb appeal.
France has many fine regions and traditions, but Paris does not showcase them.
Washington DC delenda est.