You all know the Eiffel Tower but I bet you know nothing about the man who built it! He was born in 1832 in Dijon (yes, where they do the Dijon Mustard!), he studied engineering (surprise, surprise...) and he specialized in... metallic structures (no kidding?!). He participated in many projects (including the Panama Canal which caused him some trouble...) and finally died at the age of 91 (in 1923). I took a photo of his bust right under "his" tower and I just love it. If you want to know more about him click here.
Let's not forget that he also did the metallic structure of the Statue of Liberty! It was assembled, I think, in Levallois, a small town NE of Paris, and then shipped to the U.S.
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JM. There was a documentary on PBS not too long ago. You can probably track it there:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pbs.org/kenburns/statueofliberty/about/
Tomate> Thanks for the pointer. It looks like a good documentary. It was probably a rebroadcast, the film was made in 1985. It is not for sale from PBS. Bummer!
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