In Paris (France), the historic Eiffel Tower is undergoing its most extensive facelift in 130-years. Raw Story reported that the revamp, including a paint job to give the tower a “golden hue,” comes ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Since 1898, the Eiffel Tower has housed antennas, making it a fixture for radio and television broadcasts worldwide. French civil engineer Gustave Eiffel himself financed experiments with wireless telegraphy at the turn of the 20th Century in order to fund and add utility to his masterpiece. Today, the structure serves as home base to more than 100 antennas, ranging from broadcast to cellular to fixed mobile, according to the toureiffel.paris website.
The tower is currently painted brown, which it has sported since 1968, reported Raw Story. The new color is more in line with the vision that Eiffel had in mind originally.
“It’s going to give the Eiffel Tower a bit more of a gold hue than the color that we’re used to seeing, in time for the Olympic Games,” said Patrick Branco Ruivo, the CEO of the company operating the tower, called “The Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel.”
The undertaking to renovate the 1,063-foot tower will cost an estimated $60 million. This includes stripping 19 layers of paint since the tower receives a fresh coat every seven years to protect it against the elements.
The project began in 2019, with an anticipated completion date in 2022. According to Raw Story, some workers feel like it’s the job of a lifetime. Worker Charles-Henri Piret commented on the view and said, “It’s not every day you get to hang off a rope at nearly 1,000 feet.”
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