Stand for Your Vision
Few are the first to recognize innovation.
More than 200 million people have visited the Eiffel tower since its construction began in 1887. But at it’s selection as the centerpiece of the Paris Exposition, there was a huge storm of vitriol, mockery and lawsuits.
To get it built, Gustave Eiffel had to fend off critics. He even had to commit to promise disassemble it in 20 years. From the Wall Street Journal, ‘Odious Column’ of Metal…
Even as Eiffel was breaking ground by the Seine River in February 1887, 47 of France’s greatest names decried in a letter to Le Temps the “odious column of bolted metal.” What person of good taste, this flock of intellectuals asked, could endure the thought of this “dizzily ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a black and gigantic factory chimney, crushing [all] beneath its barbarous mass”? The revered painters Ernest Meissonier and William-Adolphe Bouguereau, writers Guy de Maupassant and Alexandre Dumas fils, composer Charles Gounod and architect Charles Garnier all signed this epistolary call to arms, stating that “the Eiffel Tower, which even commercial America would not have, is without a doubt the dishonor of Paris.”
Eiffel’s response to the criticism…
‘And I submit that the curves of [the tower's] four piers as produced by our calculations, rising from an enormous base and narrowing toward the top, will give a great impression of strength and beauty.’ Eiffel the ardent republican wondered why his nay-saying compatriots could not see the glory. France, a lone republic surrounded by monarchies, was building “the tallest edifice ever raised by man,” a completely original industrial-strength monument made possible by new knowledge and technologies, a colossal modern wonder of the world designed to draw vast throngs to France’s Exposition Universelle.
I will have a later posting that lists products and projects that few understand as having any practical purpose or future. Can you think of any?
4 comments
Nice post, I won’t look at that ‘odious column of bolted metal’ the same way now. In New York, we had these big rather bizarre man-made waterfalls into the ocean for a while. They were pretty pricey and not very ‘practical.’ I didn’t see them often, but when I did, I was surprised to really like them – they felt to me like big giants smiling over at the city, whether that was the artists intent or not.
I thought about you while writing this, and our extensive talks about your vision for social networking. I think I wasn’t supportive enough.
No way, your critiques were very insightful, quickly generated, and sharpening, I was just writing you an email about getting together… anyway back to that.
I think the Cross is a big one :)