Eiffel Tower

Today 120 years old, the Eiffel Tower, one of the most visited monument of the world (in 2008, 6.390.000 visitors), will recover a beauty but as usual, with a brown colour. Some of the tourists, interrogated last week, It’s about time to change : blue, green, gold or pink salmon … A team of 25 painters, all unsensitive to vertigo, will apply the 60 tons of paint, « totally ecological », on the 250.000 square meters of the surface of the Parisian tower, high of 324 meters (with antennas). « Our challenge is to repaint the Eiffel Tower and to maintain it permanently without never closing it to the visitors of the entire world” says the president of the tower. The « iron lady » is opened 365 days a year, paint campaign or not, elevators being repaired or not, work or not. The tower is built is material, quasi eternal, for it is painted frequently. Since 1899, the paint is done every 7 years. So this is the 19th campaign. Since 1968 the colour is « Eiffel Tower brown », chosen because of its harmony with the parisian landscape. This colour is made in 3 tons, from the darkest for the base, to the brightest for the top, so from the ground, it looks homogeneous. « It’s the colour that suits the best to the Eiffel Tower, maybe its most beautiful dress, at least, that’s what say the directors, the photographs, the lovers of Paris, the Parisians, all of those who like the Eiffel Tower, since now 40 years. That’s why we decided to definitely keep the brown” says president. In the past, the tower has been brown-red, brown-ochre, varied yellow, brown yellow and red-brown. The painters, often climbers, don’t take any risks. They are equipped to work on the structure and use systematically “life lines” cables so they can move having a point of attach. And brushes are attached to their arms to avoid any fall on visitors (who would have thought of that ?). And, as it was from the time of Gustave Eiffel, there is no pistol paint, only traditional methods. They start by the top of the tower and finish by the base (what a good logic), following rigorous processes. Rust is taken care of and then comes steam cleaning (high pressure), cleaning of defects and then two layers of paint. They say the paint is the essential element to help preserving a metal work and the cares given to it are the only guarantee of its duration. Because the tower undergoes rust, birds excretions. One day, It will have to be cleaned, completely. Meaning cleaning 200 tons of the previous works, which is nothing compared to the total weight of 10.000 tons. In order to celebrate its 120 years of its opening to the public, 2 months after the universal exposition in 1889, there will be in May an exhibition, before a firework in July, concerts, and 120 school classes invited : many events to help passing on the tower to the future generations.