Briefing

Building archives: Britain’s dim view of the Eiffel Tower, 1886-89

By 2023-04-12T11:00:00

Eiffel Tower 1

Writers in The Builder express complete disdain for the newly built Parisian landmark, describing it as a ”useless attempt to astonish the eye”

The Eiffel Tower is such a familiar image that it is easy to forget how extraordinary it must have looked for Parisians when it was first built. Nothing like it had ever been seen before – at more than 300m tall, it was nearly double the height of the the Washington Monument, formerly the tallest building in the world, which had been finished five years earlier.

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