mheu, Historical Museum of the Urban Environment

The architect

The French engineer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (born Bönickhausen) was born into a bourgeois family in Dijon in 1832. He studied at the Ecole Centrale and at the Polytechnique and graduated with a degree in chemistry. From 1856 onwards, he developed an interest in the new applications for iron made possible by advances in metallurgy. His first major job, aged 26, was as project manager on the construction of a railway bridge in Bordeaux. Before building the iconic tower that would make him a household name, he was involved in designing and building the structure of the Statue of Liberty. During his life he completed a long list of projects worldwide, including bridges, viaducts, stations, galleries, elevators, etc. He was also an aviation enthusiast and in later life devoted himself to research into aerodynamics which was to culminate in the design of a fighter plane in 1917. He died in Paris in 1923.