March 21, 2025 • 37 mins
In this episode of The Engineering Passion Express, we take you on a journey from working on projects that have utility, or known value, to the more abstract world of art.
This story is told through the lens of Gustave Eiffel, French Engineer and bridge builder! You know his tower, but this story is an imaginative telling of how he went from someone focused on practical structures like railway bridges, to building icons, much of his inspiration stemming from a project he was selected to work on previously! It uses some historical information from the small amounts available about the personal life of Eiffel, along with a little bit of fantasy to fill in the gaps.
Join me and learn how someone like Eiffel, a man of calculation and precision, could change his personality and risk it all on a gamble!
If you find yourself a bit reserved in your risk-taking, but you know you want to create something great, this is an episode for you. Let's take that journey together. Climb aboard now and listen!
The Engineering Passion Express is about growing knowledge and the passion for engineering.
If you are a conference organizer and are looking for an engineering or scientific speaker to inspire or educate in a keynote presentation, please reach out to me on LinkedIn. You can find my profile below.
Thanks for listening,
Brandon Donnelly
Please connect with me on linkedin @ linkedin.com/in/brandondonnelly
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
It's the mid-1880s in Paris.
For years Gustave Eiffel hasbuilt for function.
His bridges stretched acrossvalleys, his viaducts defied
gravity, his structure stood notas monuments, but as solutions.
He was an engineer, bound by thecertainty of numbers, the
unyielding laws of physics.
His work was practical, hiscalculations precise.
(00:23):
But then a man came to him withan idea.
An idea that had nothing to dowith utility, nothing to do with
necessity.
It was a monument, a statement,a symbol.
Eiffel had always believed instructure, in weight and balance
and stress and force.
But this was something else.
This was not about what could bebuilt, but what should be built.
(00:47):
And in that moment, somethingshifted in him.
He had spent his life provingwhat was possible.
Now, for the first time, he wasbeing asked to imagine.
Gustave Eiffel was no artist.
Not yet.
SPEAKER_01 (01:02):
But soon, he would be able to stick with me.
SPEAKER_02 (03:04):
If you stepped off that train on a certain day, you
probably would have found acoffee house somewhere with two
men meeting.
And what these two men werediscussing would become an icon
in the future.
And this discussion would notonly lead to the creation of an
(03:27):
amazing piece of art, but itwould change both of the men's
lives.
Now I'm gonna set a scene heredoing a terrible set of accents
between the two men conversingin a coffee house.
SPEAKER_03 (03:44):
Cafe noir, please.
Two tablespoons of coffee, 180milliliters of water.
I'll have a cafe au lait.
However the house chooses toexpress their preferences.
(04:04):
Mr.
Eiffel.
I am an artist, I am a sculptor.
SPEAKER_02 (04:11):
And I am looking to create an art piece of exquisite
beauty and of grand scale.
It's called Liberty Enlighteningthe World.
SPEAKER_03 (04:26):
And it's going to be France's gift to America.
Mr.
Bartholdi.
I am an engineer, not an artist.
I deal in calculation andprecision.
Not in form.
(04:49):
What is it that you're lookingfor from me?
Well, Mr.
Rifle.
For my sculpture, it's going tobe made out of pure copper.
SPEAKER_02 (05:05):
It's going to stand 93 meters tall.
And it is going to need aninternal structure that can
support its weight.
I've heard of your engineeringprowess.
And I believe you're the rightperson for this work.
Do you believe you can providethe services that I'm looking
(05:27):
for?
Mr.
Bartoldi.
Well I believe we can engineer astructure, certainly.
We'll need to look at a numberof considerations for a
structure that size.
We need to think about theweight that it has to support,
but also of the wind loads thatcould be significant at that
(05:47):
height.
What I'll need from you is somedrawings of the outside and what
you think the inside will looklike.
From there I'll work with myteam, do some preliminary
calculations and concept design,come back to you with a price
and a timeline in three months.
SPEAKER_03 (06:09):
That sounds good, Mr.
Eiffel.
I'll tell you what.
SPEAKER_02 (06:15):
Three months from now I've been invited to a
party.
All of Paris' elite will bethere.
How about you meet me there?
You give me your bid.
We have a little fun for theevening.
And then we figure out what thenext steps are from there.
(06:38):
That sounds great, Mr.
Bartholdi.
Before you go, I would like toask you a question.
You're a man of significantcapabilities.
SPEAKER_03 (06:49):
What makes you want to pursue art?
Mr.
Eiffel.
It is not art that I pursue.
But societal change.
Art is a means to ushering in anew era.
SPEAKER_02 (07:09):
Or to change values.
SPEAKER_03 (07:13):
Or we may use symbols, but the purpose isn't
the symbol itself.
It's the change.
That's interesting.
unknown (07:24):
Mr.
SPEAKER_03 (07:25):
Bartoldi, I don't in particular I've never thought
that way.
See, when I build a bridge, aroute that used to take two
hours may now take 15 minutes.
And all of the benefit from thatcan be quantified and
calculated.
So I'm always working on thingsthat I know are useful.
(07:50):
For me, Mr.
Eiffel, it's not always soclear.
How was your cafe ole?
It was delightfully creamytoday.
How about your cafe noir?
The same as always.
SPEAKER_02 (08:10):
Thank you for your time today.
I look forward to meeting upagain in a few months to discuss
our work.
Thank you, Mr.
Eiffel.
Now that we're through mydreadful acting, let me tell you
a little bit about what Iimagined took place.
I imagine as Eiffel strolleddown the street, leaving a
(08:33):
conversation with Bartholdi,thinking on the purpose of what
art is, he pondered.
SPEAKER_03 (08:41):
The purpose of art is to create societal change in
values.
SPEAKER_02 (08:51):
As he continues down the street, looking around
himself on the way to hisoffice, he sees a society that
values art.
So a society that values achange in society.
That didn't seem right.
SPEAKER_03 (09:10):
He sees painters, he sees sculptors, he sees actors,
he sees writers.
And he thinks to himself if artis societal change and I create
a bridge that changes the waypeople move or exchange goods.
SPEAKER_02 (09:35):
Is that art?
That's something I think he'dhave to ponder more on and
calculate the answer to.
He arrives a few steps from hisoffice and starts walking in.
Maurice Kickla, an architectemployed by Gustave Eiffel,
starts bombarding him with theproblems of the day.
(09:56):
They start to talk through someof the challenges that their
projects are facing.
And Eiffel makes the bigdecisions on calls for things
that have financial impacts.
And he likes to know or lookover the calculations that are
taking place and do a spotcheck.
All this takes Eiffel's mind offof the thoughts of art versus
(10:21):
engineering and the purpose ofart and focuses it squarely
where it usually is.
Of course, after an hour or twoof this conversation, Maurice
Kecklin shows him a sketch andsays, Gustave, I've been
thinking about a tower we couldbuild for the upcoming World's
(10:43):
Fair.
And he shows him a sketch, andit's a very tall tower.
It's not quite the image thatyou imagine in your mind today,
and Eiffel falls back into hisnormal pattern of thinking about
utility first, and says, No, wehave enough going on, we do not
(11:03):
need another project.
And from there, the days rollon, just as they normally do,
dealing with calculations andfinances and problems and
logistics.
So Gegla and Eiffel arereviewing the Statue of Liberty
project.
Gegla goes through his concernsabout the difficulty in the
(11:26):
logistics of designing forsomething that's got such an
irregular structure because it'sactually a piece of art rather
than a typical building orsystem that they work in.
But nonetheless, Eiffel says,let's work up what we think it
would cost, include a little bitmore for the challenges that
(11:48):
we're gonna have to face, andlet's put a proposal in front of
Bartoldi.
And Kecla says, sure, we can dothat, and goes about his way.
As the three months have passed,it's time for Gustave to meet up
with Bartoldi at a gamblingparty for the upper echelon of
(12:09):
French society.
So Gustave shows up at the partyand runs into Bartholdi.
As the two men talk their soundsof roulette and baccarat being
played, and Bartoldi says, Whydon't we pick a table and play?
And Gustave responds, I am acalculated man, I am an
(12:31):
engineer.
There's not much that I don't dowithout calculation.
These games of chance, theirprobabilities are set so that
the house always wins.
And Bartoldi looks at him andsays you are right.
I could be so calculated as youare.
(12:53):
I could understand that theexpected outcome of these games
is a loss.
But that's when you separate thegames from the activity we're
here for.
The shared experience of Frenchsociety.
We're here to speak of projects,we're here to speak of business,
(13:15):
we're here to make connection.
All of these items holdtremendous value.
And when you compare the valueof what I've just mentioned
against the possible loss at thetables, and the expected value
(13:36):
can only be positive.
And Bartholdi, who is a man ofart, has once again pressed
Gustave, a man of calculation,to question his values.
So Gustave Eiffel continues tospeak to Bartoldi all night
about the business of the EiffelTower and the structure needed
(14:00):
to be built, about the price andthe timelines, and Bartoldi
accepts the proposal.
Bartholdi also likes to havefun, and he convinces Gustave
Eiffel, man of business, man ofcalculation, to loosen up, to
enjoy the evening, to get somepleasure out of what started as
(14:23):
a work event.
SPEAKER_03 (14:26):
Because that's what artists seek.
They seek pleasure in theirwork.
SPEAKER_02 (14:32):
So following this event, Eiffel puts his company
on liberty enlightening theworld, or the Statue of Liberty
as we know it today.
And they build a successfulproject, a project that does
enlighten the world.
A project that very few peoplein America would say they've
(14:52):
never heard of even today.
As Eiffel continues meeting withnew people, picking up new
projects, and meeting with hisstaff internally, one day Keikla
comes back to him with a newpicture of his proposed tower
and says, Look at how beautifulthis structure is.
(15:15):
We should be proposing this forthe World's Fair coming up in
1889.
Gustave takes the tower pictureand looks at it.
He thinks to himself, this isquite a stunning tower.
SPEAKER_03 (15:31):
But what utility does it have?
And he strokes his beard and helooks out the window and he
thinks to himself Have we everdone a project like this?
And then he realizes the closestproject would be Liberty
(15:58):
Enlightening the World.
SPEAKER_02 (16:01):
Oh, and that brings him back to all the thoughts
about all the conversations heever had with Bartoldi.
What is the purpose of art tocreate societal change?
What can you afford to lose?
And as these thoughts racethrough his mind, it's like the
picture changes.
(16:23):
He remembers that stroll on theway back to the office from the
first time that he met withBartholdi.
Art is a societal change.
And he remembers walking downthe street, seeing all of the
artists at work, the painters onthe street, the writers at the
(16:46):
cafe, the sculptors sculptingout in the open, trying to
capture the essence of nature.
SPEAKER_03 (16:53):
And he thinks to himself, this isn't the world
that's coming.
This world values somethingdifferent than what the future
should value.
SPEAKER_02 (17:06):
The future should value scientific discovery.
It should valueindustrialization.
It should value engineering andcalculation abilities.
And now the tower was no longerabout utility.
It was something Eiffel had todo to bring about the world that
(17:31):
he thinks should exist.
Of course, he thinks to himselfon the financial side, being the
man of calculation that it is.
How will I afford to build this?
How can I finance this?
What will it cost?
What will the value be?
How will I recoup the money?
And some of what goes throughhis head changes again.
(17:54):
What can I afford to lose?
If you spent every dime of thefortune that you've made in your
first fifty-seven years of lifeon a tower that stood over
Paris, you might not have anymoney left.
But you might have reputation.
Reputation and worldwide famethat can easily be produced to
(18:16):
make more money.
And Gustave was overwhelmed withenvy for Bartholdi, thinking,
That man makes this look so easyto be so carefree with huge sums
of money that everything willwork out.
Not quite certain on how he'sgonna proceed.
SPEAKER_03 (18:38):
He looks at Cakela and he says, Let's do it.
Let's propose the tower.
SPEAKER_02 (18:45):
I'm not sure how I'm gonna raise the money.
I'll have to work that out withthe government.
I'm not sure how I'm gonna getthe land.
I'll have to work that out aswell.
And just looking at yourdrawings, there's gonna be tons
of challenges in building thisthing.
We got thousands of parts, we'regonna have tight deadlines to
(19:07):
rebuild by the fair.
It's so tall at 300 meters,we're going to have enormous
wind loads.
We're not even sure how tocompute.
And we're gonna have to worryabout thermal expansion because
of the enormity.
And worker safety due to theextraordinary heights.
(19:31):
You develop the concept further,and I'll start speaking with the
right people.
So everybody on the team went towork.
Gustave met with a city and thegovernment.
They said, Well, there's no waythat we're gonna fund this tower
in its entirety.
It might be a nice centerpiecefor the World's Fair, but we
(19:52):
have no idea how much valuesomething like this has to the
city of Paris.
So Gustave, being thebusinessman that he is.
Comes up with an idea.
The city of Paris gives him theland and gives him some
preliminary funding.
And from there, Gustave willfund the tower the rest of the
(20:14):
way with his own personalfortune.
At the time, this is asignificant amount of Gustave's
fortune.
He's in his 50s.
It's not like he's going torecoup this if he loses it all,
or at least it will take himsome time to recoup it.
He offers the city a proposal.
(20:36):
Gustave will fund the remainderof the tower, and in return,
he'll get the rights to thetower for 20 years.
Gustave is making a lot ofassumptions about the value of
the tower, and how many peoplewant to come see it, and how
much they're willing to pay togo up it.
(20:59):
And he thinks that 20 years isenough time to recoup his
fortune, along with a smallreturn representing the time
value of money and otherendeavors that he could have
funded.
The city eventually caves in andagrees to Gustave's demands.
After all, they want an amazingcenterpiece to the World's Fair.
(21:22):
But they don't just give himfree reign.
They say, put a proposaltogether on what the tower will
look like.
You'll need to present this to acouncil that will decide on the
feasibility.
So Gustave's team is continuallyworking on the design, tweaking
(21:43):
the aesthetics, being worriedabout the aerodynamic loads
while Gustave is herdingeverybody together that's
responsible for this fair andaligning the business side up.
And Gustave proposes the tower.
And while it's amazing from anengineering perspective, France
(22:05):
at the time is not filled withengineers.
It's filled with artisans.
They look at the tower, a bunchof straight steel beams all
riveted together, and they don'tsee art.
To them, art is details.
It's the art they trend, it'ssculpture, it's curves, its
(22:31):
complexity, it's certainly notstraight metal beams riveted
together.
But if you're measuring theseartisans in the way Gustave is
now seeing art, which art ismaking a societal change, then
(22:52):
they are in fact not art peopleat all.
They aren't making societalchange.
They're doing the arts and thecrafts that their culture has
valued for centuries.
Instead, they should be thoughtof as tradespeople.
And Gustave is coming in andhe's disrupting their trade and
(23:15):
saying that art is somethingelse other than what they do.
And that makes people angry.
And they came at him hard.
He's destroying France.
This is not the aesthetic of theFrench people.
This is not Paris.
This will destroy our skylineand make it ugly.
(23:39):
And they weren't happy.
In hearing all that, Gustave hashis entire personal fortune
riding on the line.
Can you imagine you've mademillions of dollars over the
last 30 years?
And you're now pouring it allinto this project.
Taking a gamble to make art andhaving a bunch of artists tell
(24:02):
you your idea is terrible.
I don't think there's manypeople that could stand up to
that level of scrutiny with thatmuch on the line.
We all like to think that wecan, but why is there so few
people in history with storieslike this?
Now there's not much writtenabout Gustave in his day-to-day
(24:25):
life.
But I like to think about howdid these people leave?
What were the actual steps?
What were the conversations theyhad?
And how did they continue movingforward?
And I can imagine after this,Gustave Eiffel is waking up
(24:46):
every day.
He's going to the mirror to getready.
Maybe brush his hair.
And he asks himself, what am Idoing this for?
Why am I risking so much?
Why am I taking a gamble that Ican lose everything?
He thinks of Bartholdi and hethinks of art.
(25:07):
And he thinks of himself thatart is societal change.
SPEAKER_03 (25:12):
And he takes out a piece of paper and he starts to
think about what he can do tocalculate whether this is going
to be successful or not.
SPEAKER_02 (25:26):
Now normally a businessman starts and does a
computation of value.
What is the value of this thingI'm about to make?
But art defies value, or atleast it defies traditional
value calculations from autilitarian perspective.
It could be worth nothing, or itcould be worth a hundred million
dollars when you think aboutpaintings.
(25:48):
And so he starts doing thatvalue calculation, but he
quickly realizes he can't.
Every single thing he makes ismassive assumptions with wide
bands to where he's either goingto be broke or super rich.
And that's not really useful atall.
So while he's racking his brainon how he can calculate
(26:10):
something, how he can calculatehis way out of this, since he's
an engineer, he writes down theword art on the piece of paper.
And then in a moment ofbrilliance, he makes it an
equation.
Art equals societal change.
And seeing that on the paper, itall starts to come together.
(26:35):
Art equals societal change,therefore art equals society
after minus society before.
SPEAKER_03 (26:44):
If society after equals society before, then art
equals zero.
Eiffel realizes.
So he has created art becauseart in this equation does not
(27:08):
equal zero.
SPEAKER_02 (27:11):
And he decides he must continue.
The team moves on, working ontheir 18,000 parts, working on
their aerodynamics problems,working on the worker safety and
thermal expansion problems.
And all goes well, and we knowthe outcome.
The Alpha Tower today is iconic,and it was considered a
masterpiece of the time at the1889s World Fair in Paris.
(27:35):
And for a man like Gustave, whowasn't much of a gambler, who
had to calculate his way intofaith and staying on the path,
the gamble paid off.
In the first year alone duringthe World's Fair, Gustave
recouped his entire investment.
(27:56):
But he had negotiated the rightsto the tower for twenty years.
That means the remainingnineteen years were pure profit.
Could you imagine owningsomething as iconic, something
as amazing as the Eiffel Tower?
Most people are happy to owntheir home.
(28:16):
But Yustab owned an entiretower.
Of course he had to gamble hisentire fortune to do that.
But that's not even quite fair.
Because what can he afford tolose?
If he had lost all the money inhis bank account, he would still
have his business, he wouldstill have his reputation.
(28:37):
The thirty years of work that hehad done to build the skills
that he had and the company thathe had didn't disappear.
Sure he'd be set back on money,but it's not like he wouldn't be
able to eat ever again.
It's not like he wouldn't havenice clothes.
He just wouldn't have a fortuneto fall back on.
(28:58):
But what is the point of afortune if you can't do the work
that you're interested in?
Now I can imagine at a futuremeeting in a coffee house,
Bartoldi and Eiffel get togetherfor a third time in their lives.
The waitress comes over and asksthem what they'll have.
(29:19):
Bartholdi says Cafe Ola, please.
However you like to make it.
And Gustave looks at thewaitress and says Cafe Olay.
Two parts coffee, one part milk.
And they discuss the EiffelTower and its success.
Eiffel shares with Bartoldi theinspiration he got from their
(29:42):
work on the Statue of Liberty,and how he never could have got
through without understandingthat art equals societal change,
without the conversations thathe had had with Bartoldi.
And he shares his vision withBartholdi that engineering and
calculation in the future due tothe Eiffel Tower is going to be
(30:05):
elevated.
And he shares how tourism inParis has ignited from a number
of people that want to see thetower.
Talks a little bit about someprojects that they would like to
work together in the future.
And then the two men part ways.
(30:26):
Of course, engineering itselfhas changed after the Eiffel
Tower is created.
The tower applied classical beamtheory at a scale never seen,
which is commonplace today, butwasn't back then.
Aerodynamics was studied in windtunnels for one of the first
times in recorded history, andmany of the methods that we now
(30:48):
use to design and shape modernscarscrapers were pioneered
during the Eiffel Tower.
Not to mention, not much later,it would change
telecommunications andbroadcasting, putting antennas
at significantly higherelevations, and understanding
(31:10):
that that would allow people totune in via radio.
And Eiffel was significantlychanged himself.
His reputation was elevated, hisfortune increased, his name was
memorialized, even today it'scalled the Eiffel Tower.
And if we look at everythingthat Eiffel did, we can ask
(31:30):
ourselves as engineers, am Ibeing held back by a
calculation?
Just think about that.
It's the mid-1880s in Paris.
For years Gustave Eiffel hasbuilt for function.
His bridges stretched acrossvalleys, his viaducts defied
gravity, his structure stood notas monuments, but as solutions.
He was an engineer, bound by thecertainty of numbers, the
unyielding laws of physics.
His work was practical, hiscalculations precise.
(00:23):
But then a man came to him withan idea.
An idea that had nothing to dowith utility, nothing to do with
necessity.
It was a monument, a statement,a symbol.
Eiffel had always believed instructure, in weight and balance
and stress and force.
But this was something else.
This was not about what could bebuilt, but what should be built.
(00:47):
And in that moment, somethingshifted in him.
He had spent his life provingwhat was possible.
Now, for the first time, he wasbeing asked to imagine.
Gustave Eiffel was no artist.
Not yet.
SPEAKER_01 (01:02):
But soon, he would be able to stick with me.
SPEAKER_02 (03:04):
If you stepped off that train on a certain day, you
probably would have found acoffee house somewhere with two
men meeting.
And what these two men werediscussing would become an icon
in the future.
And this discussion would notonly lead to the creation of an
(03:27):
amazing piece of art, but itwould change both of the men's
lives.
Now I'm gonna set a scene heredoing a terrible set of accents
between the two men conversingin a coffee house.
SPEAKER_03 (03:44):
Cafe noir, please.
Two tablespoons of coffee, 180milliliters of water.
I'll have a cafe au lait.
However the house chooses toexpress their preferences.
(04:04):
Mr.
Eiffel.
I am an artist, I am a sculptor.
SPEAKER_02 (04:11):
And I am looking to create an art piece of exquisite
beauty and of grand scale.
It's called Liberty Enlighteningthe World.
SPEAKER_03 (04:26):
And it's going to be France's gift to America.
Mr.
Bartholdi.
I am an engineer, not an artist.
I deal in calculation andprecision.
Not in form.
(04:49):
What is it that you're lookingfor from me?
Well, Mr.
Rifle.
For my sculpture, it's going tobe made out of pure copper.
SPEAKER_02 (05:05):
It's going to stand 93 meters tall.
And it is going to need aninternal structure that can
support its weight.
I've heard of your engineeringprowess.
And I believe you're the rightperson for this work.
Do you believe you can providethe services that I'm looking
(05:27):
for?
Mr.
Bartoldi.
Well I believe we can engineer astructure, certainly.
We'll need to look at a numberof considerations for a
structure that size.
We need to think about theweight that it has to support,
but also of the wind loads thatcould be significant at that
(05:47):
height.
What I'll need from you is somedrawings of the outside and what
you think the inside will looklike.
From there I'll work with myteam, do some preliminary
calculations and concept design,come back to you with a price
and a timeline in three months.
SPEAKER_03 (06:09):
That sounds good, Mr.
Eiffel.
I'll tell you what.
SPEAKER_02 (06:15):
Three months from now I've been invited to a
party.
All of Paris' elite will bethere.
How about you meet me there?
You give me your bid.
We have a little fun for theevening.
And then we figure out what thenext steps are from there.
(06:38):
That sounds great, Mr.
Bartholdi.
Before you go, I would like toask you a question.
You're a man of significantcapabilities.
SPEAKER_03 (06:49):
What makes you want to pursue art?
Mr.
Eiffel.
It is not art that I pursue.
But societal change.
Art is a means to ushering in anew era.
SPEAKER_02 (07:09):
Or to change values.
SPEAKER_03 (07:13):
Or we may use symbols, but the purpose isn't
the symbol itself.
It's the change.
That's interesting.
unknown (07:24):
Mr.
SPEAKER_03 (07:25):
Bartoldi, I don't in particular I've never thought
that way.
See, when I build a bridge, aroute that used to take two
hours may now take 15 minutes.
And all of the benefit from thatcan be quantified and
calculated.
So I'm always working on thingsthat I know are useful.
(07:50):
For me, Mr.
Eiffel, it's not always soclear.
How was your cafe ole?
It was delightfully creamytoday.
How about your cafe noir?
The same as always.
SPEAKER_02 (08:10):
Thank you for your time today.
I look forward to meeting upagain in a few months to discuss
our work.
Thank you, Mr.
Eiffel.
Now that we're through mydreadful acting, let me tell you
a little bit about what Iimagined took place.
I imagine as Eiffel strolleddown the street, leaving a
(08:33):
conversation with Bartholdi,thinking on the purpose of what
art is, he pondered.
SPEAKER_03 (08:41):
The purpose of art is to create societal change in
values.
SPEAKER_02 (08:51):
As he continues down the street, looking around
himself on the way to hisoffice, he sees a society that
values art.
So a society that values achange in society.
That didn't seem right.
SPEAKER_03 (09:10):
He sees painters, he sees sculptors, he sees actors,
he sees writers.
And he thinks to himself if artis societal change and I create
a bridge that changes the waypeople move or exchange goods.
SPEAKER_02 (09:35):
Is that art?
That's something I think he'dhave to ponder more on and
calculate the answer to.
He arrives a few steps from hisoffice and starts walking in.
Maurice Kickla, an architectemployed by Gustave Eiffel,
starts bombarding him with theproblems of the day.
(09:56):
They start to talk through someof the challenges that their
projects are facing.
And Eiffel makes the bigdecisions on calls for things
that have financial impacts.
And he likes to know or lookover the calculations that are
taking place and do a spotcheck.
All this takes Eiffel's mind offof the thoughts of art versus
(10:21):
engineering and the purpose ofart and focuses it squarely
where it usually is.
Of course, after an hour or twoof this conversation, Maurice
Kecklin shows him a sketch andsays, Gustave, I've been
thinking about a tower we couldbuild for the upcoming World's
(10:43):
Fair.
And he shows him a sketch, andit's a very tall tower.
It's not quite the image thatyou imagine in your mind today,
and Eiffel falls back into hisnormal pattern of thinking about
utility first, and says, No, wehave enough going on, we do not
(11:03):
need another project.
And from there, the days rollon, just as they normally do,
dealing with calculations andfinances and problems and
logistics.
So Gegla and Eiffel arereviewing the Statue of Liberty
project.
Gegla goes through his concernsabout the difficulty in the
(11:26):
logistics of designing forsomething that's got such an
irregular structure because it'sactually a piece of art rather
than a typical building orsystem that they work in.
But nonetheless, Eiffel says,let's work up what we think it
would cost, include a little bitmore for the challenges that
(11:48):
we're gonna have to face, andlet's put a proposal in front of
Bartoldi.
And Kecla says, sure, we can dothat, and goes about his way.
As the three months have passed,it's time for Gustave to meet up
with Bartoldi at a gamblingparty for the upper echelon of
(12:09):
French society.
So Gustave shows up at the partyand runs into Bartholdi.
As the two men talk their soundsof roulette and baccarat being
played, and Bartoldi says, Whydon't we pick a table and play?
And Gustave responds, I am acalculated man, I am an
(12:31):
engineer.
There's not much that I don't dowithout calculation.
These games of chance, theirprobabilities are set so that
the house always wins.
And Bartoldi looks at him andsays you are right.
I could be so calculated as youare.
(12:53):
I could understand that theexpected outcome of these games
is a loss.
But that's when you separate thegames from the activity we're
here for.
The shared experience of Frenchsociety.
We're here to speak of projects,we're here to speak of business,
(13:15):
we're here to make connection.
All of these items holdtremendous value.
And when you compare the valueof what I've just mentioned
against the possible loss at thetables, and the expected value
(13:36):
can only be positive.
And Bartholdi, who is a man ofart, has once again pressed
Gustave, a man of calculation,to question his values.
So Gustave Eiffel continues tospeak to Bartoldi all night
about the business of the EiffelTower and the structure needed
(14:00):
to be built, about the price andthe timelines, and Bartoldi
accepts the proposal.
Bartholdi also likes to havefun, and he convinces Gustave
Eiffel, man of business, man ofcalculation, to loosen up, to
enjoy the evening, to get somepleasure out of what started as
(14:23):
a work event.
SPEAKER_03 (14:26):
Because that's what artists seek.
They seek pleasure in theirwork.
SPEAKER_02 (14:32):
So following this event, Eiffel puts his company
on liberty enlightening theworld, or the Statue of Liberty
as we know it today.
And they build a successfulproject, a project that does
enlighten the world.
A project that very few peoplein America would say they've
(14:52):
never heard of even today.
As Eiffel continues meeting withnew people, picking up new
projects, and meeting with hisstaff internally, one day Keikla
comes back to him with a newpicture of his proposed tower
and says, Look at how beautifulthis structure is.
(15:15):
We should be proposing this forthe World's Fair coming up in
1889.
Gustave takes the tower pictureand looks at it.
He thinks to himself, this isquite a stunning tower.
SPEAKER_03 (15:31):
But what utility does it have?
And he strokes his beard and helooks out the window and he
thinks to himself Have we everdone a project like this?
And then he realizes the closestproject would be Liberty
(15:58):
Enlightening the World.
SPEAKER_02 (16:01):
Oh, and that brings him back to all the thoughts
about all the conversations heever had with Bartoldi.
What is the purpose of art tocreate societal change?
What can you afford to lose?
And as these thoughts racethrough his mind, it's like the
picture changes.
(16:23):
He remembers that stroll on theway back to the office from the
first time that he met withBartholdi.
Art is a societal change.
And he remembers walking downthe street, seeing all of the
artists at work, the painters onthe street, the writers at the
(16:46):
cafe, the sculptors sculptingout in the open, trying to
capture the essence of nature.
SPEAKER_03 (16:53):
And he thinks to himself, this isn't the world
that's coming.
This world values somethingdifferent than what the future
should value.
SPEAKER_02 (17:06):
The future should value scientific discovery.
It should valueindustrialization.
It should value engineering andcalculation abilities.
And now the tower was no longerabout utility.
It was something Eiffel had todo to bring about the world that
(17:31):
he thinks should exist.
Of course, he thinks to himselfon the financial side, being the
man of calculation that it is.
How will I afford to build this?
How can I finance this?
What will it cost?
What will the value be?
How will I recoup the money?
And some of what goes throughhis head changes again.
(17:54):
What can I afford to lose?
If you spent every dime of thefortune that you've made in your
first fifty-seven years of lifeon a tower that stood over
Paris, you might not have anymoney left.
But you might have reputation.
Reputation and worldwide famethat can easily be produced to
(18:16):
make more money.
And Gustave was overwhelmed withenvy for Bartholdi, thinking,
That man makes this look so easyto be so carefree with huge sums
of money that everything willwork out.
Not quite certain on how he'sgonna proceed.
SPEAKER_03 (18:38):
He looks at Cakela and he says, Let's do it.
Let's propose the tower.
SPEAKER_02 (18:45):
I'm not sure how I'm gonna raise the money.
I'll have to work that out withthe government.
I'm not sure how I'm gonna getthe land.
I'll have to work that out aswell.
And just looking at yourdrawings, there's gonna be tons
of challenges in building thisthing.
We got thousands of parts, we'regonna have tight deadlines to
(19:07):
rebuild by the fair.
It's so tall at 300 meters,we're going to have enormous
wind loads.
We're not even sure how tocompute.
And we're gonna have to worryabout thermal expansion because
of the enormity.
And worker safety due to theextraordinary heights.
(19:31):
You develop the concept further,and I'll start speaking with the
right people.
So everybody on the team went towork.
Gustave met with a city and thegovernment.
They said, Well, there's no waythat we're gonna fund this tower
in its entirety.
It might be a nice centerpiecefor the World's Fair, but we
(19:52):
have no idea how much valuesomething like this has to the
city of Paris.
So Gustave, being thebusinessman that he is.
Comes up with an idea.
The city of Paris gives him theland and gives him some
preliminary funding.
And from there, Gustave willfund the tower the rest of the
(20:14):
way with his own personalfortune.
At the time, this is asignificant amount of Gustave's
fortune.
He's in his 50s.
It's not like he's going torecoup this if he loses it all,
or at least it will take himsome time to recoup it.
He offers the city a proposal.
(20:36):
Gustave will fund the remainderof the tower, and in return,
he'll get the rights to thetower for 20 years.
Gustave is making a lot ofassumptions about the value of
the tower, and how many peoplewant to come see it, and how
much they're willing to pay togo up it.
(20:59):
And he thinks that 20 years isenough time to recoup his
fortune, along with a smallreturn representing the time
value of money and otherendeavors that he could have
funded.
The city eventually caves in andagrees to Gustave's demands.
After all, they want an amazingcenterpiece to the World's Fair.
(21:22):
But they don't just give himfree reign.
They say, put a proposaltogether on what the tower will
look like.
You'll need to present this to acouncil that will decide on the
feasibility.
So Gustave's team is continuallyworking on the design, tweaking
(21:43):
the aesthetics, being worriedabout the aerodynamic loads
while Gustave is herdingeverybody together that's
responsible for this fair andaligning the business side up.
And Gustave proposes the tower.
And while it's amazing from anengineering perspective, France
(22:05):
at the time is not filled withengineers.
It's filled with artisans.
They look at the tower, a bunchof straight steel beams all
riveted together, and they don'tsee art.
To them, art is details.
It's the art they trend, it'ssculpture, it's curves, its
(22:31):
complexity, it's certainly notstraight metal beams riveted
together.
But if you're measuring theseartisans in the way Gustave is
now seeing art, which art ismaking a societal change, then
(22:52):
they are in fact not art peopleat all.
They aren't making societalchange.
They're doing the arts and thecrafts that their culture has
valued for centuries.
Instead, they should be thoughtof as tradespeople.
And Gustave is coming in andhe's disrupting their trade and
(23:15):
saying that art is somethingelse other than what they do.
And that makes people angry.
And they came at him hard.
He's destroying France.
This is not the aesthetic of theFrench people.
This is not Paris.
This will destroy our skylineand make it ugly.
(23:39):
And they weren't happy.
In hearing all that, Gustave hashis entire personal fortune
riding on the line.
Can you imagine you've mademillions of dollars over the
last 30 years?
And you're now pouring it allinto this project.
Taking a gamble to make art andhaving a bunch of artists tell
(24:02):
you your idea is terrible.
I don't think there's manypeople that could stand up to
that level of scrutiny with thatmuch on the line.
We all like to think that wecan, but why is there so few
people in history with storieslike this?
Now there's not much writtenabout Gustave in his day-to-day
(24:25):
life.
But I like to think about howdid these people leave?
What were the actual steps?
What were the conversations theyhad?
And how did they continue movingforward?
And I can imagine after this,Gustave Eiffel is waking up
(24:46):
every day.
He's going to the mirror to getready.
Maybe brush his hair.
And he asks himself, what am Idoing this for?
Why am I risking so much?
Why am I taking a gamble that Ican lose everything?
He thinks of Bartholdi and hethinks of art.
(25:07):
And he thinks of himself thatart is societal change.
SPEAKER_03 (25:12):
And he takes out a piece of paper and he starts to
think about what he can do tocalculate whether this is going
to be successful or not.
SPEAKER_02 (25:26):
Now normally a businessman starts and does a
computation of value.
What is the value of this thingI'm about to make?
But art defies value, or atleast it defies traditional
value calculations from autilitarian perspective.
It could be worth nothing, or itcould be worth a hundred million
dollars when you think aboutpaintings.
(25:48):
And so he starts doing thatvalue calculation, but he
quickly realizes he can't.
Every single thing he makes ismassive assumptions with wide
bands to where he's either goingto be broke or super rich.
And that's not really useful atall.
So while he's racking his brainon how he can calculate
(26:10):
something, how he can calculatehis way out of this, since he's
an engineer, he writes down theword art on the piece of paper.
And then in a moment ofbrilliance, he makes it an
equation.
Art equals societal change.
And seeing that on the paper, itall starts to come together.
(26:35):
Art equals societal change,therefore art equals society
after minus society before.
SPEAKER_03 (26:44):
If society after equals society before, then art
equals zero.
Eiffel realizes.
So he has created art becauseart in this equation does not
(27:08):
equal zero.
SPEAKER_02 (27:11):
And he decides he must continue.
The team moves on, working ontheir 18,000 parts, working on
their aerodynamics problems,working on the worker safety and
thermal expansion problems.
And all goes well, and we knowthe outcome.
The Alpha Tower today is iconic,and it was considered a
masterpiece of the time at the1889s World Fair in Paris.
(27:35):
And for a man like Gustave, whowasn't much of a gambler, who
had to calculate his way intofaith and staying on the path,
the gamble paid off.
In the first year alone duringthe World's Fair, Gustave
recouped his entire investment.
(27:56):
But he had negotiated the rightsto the tower for twenty years.
That means the remainingnineteen years were pure profit.
Could you imagine owningsomething as iconic, something
as amazing as the Eiffel Tower?
Most people are happy to owntheir home.
(28:16):
But Yustab owned an entiretower.
Of course he had to gamble hisentire fortune to do that.
But that's not even quite fair.
Because what can he afford tolose?
If he had lost all the money inhis bank account, he would still
have his business, he wouldstill have his reputation.
(28:37):
The thirty years of work that hehad done to build the skills
that he had and the company thathe had didn't disappear.
Sure he'd be set back on money,but it's not like he wouldn't be
able to eat ever again.
It's not like he wouldn't havenice clothes.
He just wouldn't have a fortuneto fall back on.
(28:58):
But what is the point of afortune if you can't do the work
that you're interested in?
Now I can imagine at a futuremeeting in a coffee house,
Bartoldi and Eiffel get togetherfor a third time in their lives.
The waitress comes over and asksthem what they'll have.
(29:19):
Bartholdi says Cafe Ola, please.
However you like to make it.
And Gustave looks at thewaitress and says Cafe Olay.
Two parts coffee, one part milk.
And they discuss the EiffelTower and its success.
Eiffel shares with Bartoldi theinspiration he got from their
(29:42):
work on the Statue of Liberty,and how he never could have got
through without understandingthat art equals societal change,
without the conversations thathe had had with Bartoldi.
And he shares his vision withBartholdi that engineering and
calculation in the future due tothe Eiffel Tower is going to be
(30:05):
elevated.
And he shares how tourism inParis has ignited from a number
of people that want to see thetower.
Talks a little bit about someprojects that they would like to
work together in the future.
And then the two men part ways.
(30:26):
Of course, engineering itselfhas changed after the Eiffel
Tower is created.
The tower applied classical beamtheory at a scale never seen,
which is commonplace today, butwasn't back then.
Aerodynamics was studied in windtunnels for one of the first
times in recorded history, andmany of the methods that we now
(30:48):
use to design and shape modernscarscrapers were pioneered
during the Eiffel Tower.
Not to mention, not much later,it would change
telecommunications andbroadcasting, putting antennas
at significantly higherelevations, and understanding
(31:10):
that that would allow people totune in via radio.
And Eiffel was significantlychanged himself.
His reputation was elevated, hisfortune increased, his name was
memorialized, even today it'scalled the Eiffel Tower.
And if we look at everythingthat Eiffel did, we can ask
(31:30):
ourselves as engineers, am Ibeing held back by a
calculation?
Just think about that.
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