# The Eiffel Tower: State of the Construction

- By: Louis-Emile Durandelle
- Date: 23 November 1888
- Classification: Print
- Credit line: The Getty Center, Object 61770 This image was taken from the Getty Research Institute's Open Content Program, which states the following regarding their assessment that no known copyright restrictions exist: Open content images are…
- Museum: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Louis-Emile_Durandelle,_The_Eiffel_Tower_-_State_of_the_Construction,_1888.jpg)
- Rights: Public domain
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/commons/thumb/1/14/Louis-Emile_Durandelle%2C_The_Eiffel_Tower_-_State_of_the_Construction%2C_1888.jpg/1920px-Louis-Emile_Durandelle%2C_The_Eiffel_Tower_-_State_of_the_Construction%2C_1888.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

The Centennial Exposition of 1889 was organized by the French government to commemorate the French Revolution. Bridge engineer Gustave Eiffel's 984-foot (300-meter) tower of open-lattice wrought iron was selected in a competition to erect a memorial at the exposition. Twice as high as the dome of St. Peter's in Rome or the Great Pyramid of Giza, nothing like it had ever been built before. This view was made about four months short of the tower's completion. Louis-Émile Durandelle photographed the tower from a low vantage point to emphasize its monumentality. The massive building barely visible in the far distance is dwarfed under the tower's arches.

Incidentally, the tower's innovative glass-cage elevators, engineered to ascend on a curve, were designed by the Otis Elevator Company of New York, the same company that designed the Getty Center's diagonally ascending tram.