Gustave Eiffel Centenary
The engineering genius (no other word will do) Gustave Bönickhausen was born in France December 1832 and died in France December 1923.
Thank goodness he changed his name to Eiffel before he built his Tower (his father called himself Eifel, with one f, after a mountain range in Germany).
Gustave had a fight on his hands to build the world famous monument and another fight to save it from demolition twenty years later.
To commemorate the centenary of his death, those who work in his iconic Tower went on strike. A symbolic gesture on a symbolic day. They wanted to draw public attention to the Master, their Master. They also wanted to draw public attention to the fact that The Iron Lady, as Parisians affectionately call the Eiffel Tower, is showing her age (one hundred and thirty-four). Like so many celebrities, she needs work done.
Gustave’s other five hundred works of genius, stations, bridges, churches, lighthouses, domes built all over the world, were less controversial. His Tower and Statue of Liberty were special one-offs, but Gustave relied on his bread and butter work. His small but very lucrative, ready to assemble buildings popped up across the globe. One, The Eiffel Hall (Prestal Building) is in Amboise, although as it’s for sale, for how much longer wonder its many fans. If the powers that be were allowed to destroy Gustave’s home, (1 rue Rabelais, 8th arrondissement, Paris) what hope is there for a factory building?
Well. You never know. His family might ride in on a white horse to save it the way it did with his bridge in Bordeaux, his tomb in Levallois cemetery and his monument in Dijon.
Sylvain Yeatman-Eiffel, Honorary Chairman of the Association of the Descendants of Gustave Eiffel: Descendants, admirers, local residents, it is up to all of us, uniting our common efforts, to defend and protect Eiffel’s rare and masterly legacy.
It is not the least bit surprising to learn that the family asked that he be buried in The Pantheon in Paris. What is shocking is that Gustave Eiffel as much the symbol of France as the tricolour is not already there.
Mark 6:4. springs to mind. A prophet is not without honour, except in his own country.
Post by Pamela, Photography by Pamela and Mark.
PhotographFrance.com
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