Gustave Eiffel

Alexandre Gustave Eiffel [ alɛksɑdʀ GYSTA ː v ɛfɛl ] (* December 15, 1832 in Dijon, † December 27, 1923 in Paris) was a French engineer.

Curriculum vitae

Eiffel's birth name was Alexandre Gustave Bönickhausen. The German name at birth went back to an ancestor who had immigrated in the early 18th century from Marmagen in the Eifel region to France. In order to make it sound the name of French, the family changed the name to Eiffel, as a reference to the mid-mountain from which came the ancestor. Officially did Gustave Eiffel Bönickhausen dit delete his German surname only on 15 December 1880.

From 1843 Eiffel attended the Collège Sainte -Barbe in Paris and then completed his studies at the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures (now the École Centrale Paris), from which he graduated in 1855 as a chemical engineer. After an entry is not realized in the factories of his uncle, he was employed for several months in an explosive factory in Châtillon -sur -Seine and then worked in the railway company " Compagnie des chemins de fer de l' Ouest". There he made the acquaintance of the 1856 steel construction entrepreneur Charles Nepveu. This personally found a liking to the young talent and made ​​him a project manager in the railway bridge. In this section at that time there was a great demand for engineers and at the same time a high personnel turnover. Eiffel showed perseverance, diplomatic people skills and most of all great organizational skills, always win the most suitable professionals for their projects and merge. From 1857 to 1860 he was responsible for the construction of the 500 -meter-long railway bridge of Bordeaux. This successfully completed demanding order established his reputation in the industry.

In 1862 Eiffel married the Frenchwoman Marie Gaudelet, with whom he had five children, three girls and two boys. Gustave Eiffel's wife, however, died very early in 1877. Then He married his cousin Chantall letou.

In 1867 he was responsible for the construction of the viaducts of Rouzat -sur -la -Sioule and Neuvial and for the construction of the railway line Commentry - Gannat in Auvergne; followed first work for the World's Fair. From 1872 to 1874 Eiffel worked in South America, where he worked in Chile, Bolivia and Peru. 1875 was his responsibility to the construction of the Western Railway Station in Budapest. In 1880 he was awarded the contract for the construction of the viaduct Garabit, which because of its height ( 122 meters) and its curved shape caused a stir. From 1881 to 1882 Eiffel built the bridge of Szeged in Hungary. In 1879 he began the development of a sophisticated support system for the designed by Frenchman Frederic- Auguste Bartholdi Statue of Liberty in New York.

The Dictionnnaire des Francs - Macon Européens called Eiffel as a member of a lodge of the Grand Orient de France, but without specifying the concrete box. Although seems in particular a significant creative and financial participation of the Freemasons at the Statue of Liberty to confirm the membership, but since recording date and the specific name of the lodge are not well known, the membership shall be deemed controversial.

His most famous building is named after him Eiffel Tower, designed by the architect Charles Léon Stephen Sauvestre designed after a design by Maurice Koechlin idea and was built in 1887 for the Paris World Exhibition of 1889 under Eiffel line. From 1888, he was also involved in the construction of the Panama Canal.

At the beginning of the 20th century made ​​the Eiffel pioneering work in the field of wind tunnels with experiments for the investigation of air resistance of different geometric shapes, and thus laid the foundations for the modern aircraft.

The name "Eiffel "

Since the early 18th century, the paternal ancestors of Gustave Eiffel bear the name " Bönickhausen Eiffel " or " Eiffel Bönickhausen dit " ( " called Eiffel "). The now known as the German Eifel low mountain range has been written up in the second half of the 19th century "Eiffel " and showed the origin of the family to Bönickhausen.

The oldest verifiable ancestor of Bönickhausen family in France, Jean- René Bönickhausen, who married on April 30 in 1711 in Paris and died on January 7, 1734 in Saint- Valerie -sur -Somme in Picardy.

The writer and Eiffel biographer François Poncetton and the former Director General of the French archives, Charles Braibant expressed the assumption that the oldest ancestor in the French line, Jean -René Bönickhausen, comes from that of the Eifel schoolmaster Leo Heinrich Bönickhausen family. He lived to the end of the 17th century in Aremberg Ahrweiler district, and in Marmagen, Euskirchen, and stood there as ludimagister ( schoolmaster ) and sacristan in the church services. Dating back to Braibant the declaration has spread that its 1680 baptized in Marmagen son Wilhelm Heinrich had emigrated to France in 1710 and there have called with the addition Eiffel Jean René Bönickhausen. These often found in the present Eiffel biographies claim is but unproven.

Also in the birth certificate of Alexandre Gustave Eiffel is " Eiffel Bönickhausen dit " is entered. On the edge of the document but is a mention that it was decreed by the December 15, 1888 by judgment of the trial court of Dijon, put the name "Eiffel " to take the place of " Bönickhausen ". Braibant indicates that Gustave Eiffel has obtained this name change shortly before the opening of the Eiffel Tower, 1889.

Important Structures

  • Galerie des Machines, Paris World Fair of 1867, later than Crystallpalast the Concert House Flora (now Rote Flora ) converted to Hamburg, though not destroyed in the Second World War, in 1988 demolished despite preservation and scrapped
  • Eiffel Tower (Tour Eiffel), Paris ( F ), built 1887-1889
  • Structure of the Statue of Liberty ( Statue of Liberty ), New York (USA), built in 1886
  • Garabit Viaduct ( Viaduc de Garabit ) Loubaresse (F ), built 1881-1884
  • Ponte Maria Pia bridge in Porto (P ), built 1876-1877
  • Budapest Nyugati palyaudvar, Western Railway Station in Budapest in 1875
  • Railway bridge in Munich near Basel, collapsed in 1891, see also Juratrain
  • Vecchio viaduct of the railway on Corsica
  • In 1892 he took part in the competition for the construction of the Trinity bridge in Saint Petersburg. Although another French company carried out the construction, it was based on Eiffel's project.
  • Hotel Traian in Iasi (Romania )
  • Station from Maputo ( capital of Mozambique )
  • La Casa de Hierro, the Iron House, Iquitos, Amazon / Peru
  • Church of Santa Barbara, Santa Rosalía, Mexico
  • Suspension bridge at Ste -Anne, Reunion
  • Viaduct in Buis -les -Baronnies on the railway line Orange - Buis- les- Baronnies, demolished after closure in 1953
  • In the neo-Gothic style, the Basílica de San Sebastián was built in Manila. It has been completely constructed of steel for templates of Gustave Eiffel.

Writings

  • La résistance de l'air et l' aviation. 1910
  • Les nouvelles Recherches sur la résistance EXPERIMENTALES de l'air et l' aviation. 1914
Steel building Project management Thermal fluctuations Auvergne (region) Euskirchen (district) Souleuvre Viaduct Lower Normandy Structurae Integrated Authority File
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