(EMAILWIRE.COM, April 04, 2009 ) Paris, France - Considering it was supposed to have been dismantled a century ago, Paris’ most famous landmark is looking good as it turns 120 years old – however, none of this growing old gracefully – the ‘Iron Lady’ is being given a facelift to maintain her youthful appearance…
Once every seven years, the Eiffel Tower gets a makeover- every nut, bolt and beam is repainted by hand by a team of painters, who still use the same tiny circular brushes that were first used in 1889.
The huge scale project costs £3.6 million and requires more than 60 metric tonnes of patented, signature ‘Eiffel Tower brown’ paint, 50 kilometres of climbing rope and 18 months of work by painters willing to scale new heights.
This year, the painting team comes from Greece and Romania and the paint from Norway. The muddy brown was chosen in 1968 to blend in with the cityscape and to reflect a copper tone when illuminated at night.
The water-based, lead-free paint is applied in three shades to give an impression of uniformity when observed from the ground. The tower has in the past been painted red, orange and yellow and in the seven years between paintings, about 55 tons of paint erodes.
The tower, which casts a shadow over the River Seine, was constructed in 1889 for the WorldÂ’s Fair that marked the centennial of the French Revolution, and was originally intended to be a temporary feature and was going to be dismantled after less than a year.
Fast forward one hundred years and the ‘temporary’ iron structure, which was the world’s tallest building until 1929 when it was ousted by New York’s Chrysler Building, has become the most visited tourist attraction in France, pulling in a whopping seven million visitors last year.
The fact that the team of painters is not French has angered some Parisian locals who feel that such an icon of France should be decorated by the French.
“We didn’t investigate the nationalities of the people who are working here, nor did we discriminate,” Jean-Bernard Bros, President of SETE, the company which runs the tower, said at a news conference.
“We did not ask about their passports or their nationality. These are working people. They’re paid for their work,” he added.
The chef Alain Ducasse has just taken over the tower restaurant, the Jules Verne, and earned a Michelin star for it. Now, when the tower wants to change colour for a special event, coloured lighting rather than paint is used to give it a temporary new look- it was blue and gold last year to mark FranceÂ’s turn in the rotating presidency of the European Union.
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