What's in the Secret Apartment Atop the Eiffel Tower?

Yes, there's a secret apartment atop the Eiffel tower -- and it's filled with science! Learn how it came to be -- and how it actually saved the tower from destruction -- in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff
Lauren Vogelbong here. The Eiffel Tower is one of the
world's most famous selfie backdrops, but it's also home to
a little known apartment with an intriguing history steeped in
science and secrecy. The Eiffel Tower was unveiled in Paris
as the Peace to Resistance of the nineteen nine World's Fair.

(00:24):
It was engineered as a testament to France's technological machinations
and as a monumental way to mark the one d
anniversary of the French Revolution. Gustav Eiffel, whose company designed
and built the tower, added a number of furtive extras
to it, ranging from a secret apartment to telegraph and
radio broadcast equipment. It was this apartment that may have

(00:45):
saved the Eiffel Tower from being torn down as a
temporary exhibit left over from the World's Fair, a demolition
that was slated for twenty years from the time of
its debut. Turns out, the French government discovered and appreciated
the wireless Yes wireless in eighteen eighty nine telegraphed transmitter
and radio antenna so much that it opted to keep
and care for the tower indefinitely. In nineteen o three,

(01:08):
just six short years before the tower was set to
be demolished, Eiffel doubled down on his invitations to scientists
to host brainy discussions and conduct research from within the
towers little known apartment. The apartment, about a thousand feet
or three ds off the ground, was outfitted with cozy rugs, chairs,
and other comforts, but it also had adjacent spaces to
serve as many laboratories. From this bird level apartment, the

(01:31):
atmosphere was measured, the stars and planets were observed, and
the bounds of physics were explored by some of the
greatest minds of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century,
and in a French captain experimented with wireless broadcast signals,
eventually sending signals as far as North America. The Eiffel
Tower and its scientific purpose became too important to the

(01:52):
French government to be torn down. Just a few years later,
the tower would play a vital role in World War One,
when the French military used the our list communicators to
transmit to ships in the Atlantic Ocean. Today, the Eiffel
Tower receives about seven million visitors each year, and those
who purchase a ticket to the top of the tower
can look for a window at the apartment where Thomas

(02:12):
Edison once conversed with Eiffel and other invitation only guests.
For the most part, the apartment's original appearance has been preserved.
There's a pholstered furniture, a grand piano, and burnished web
cabinets against a backdrop of patterned wallpaper. The apartment's laboratory
areas still exhibits some of their original scientific equipment, and
there's an observatory above the apartment that's not open to

(02:34):
public viewing. And although you can't stay in the original
apartment at the Eiffel Tower, there's now another option. The
Gustav Eiffel Reception Room, situated at a hundred and eighty
seven feet or fifty seven meters off the ground, is
open for event rental for a starting fee of seventy
pounds sterling, which is about ten thousand dollars. Today's episode

(02:58):
was written by Laurel d and produced by Tyler Clang.
The brain Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's
How Stuff Works. For more in this and lots of
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