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Eiffel Tower, Paris (France)
The myth says that Barcelona rejected the construction of the Eiffel Tower in 1888. Therefore, the monument was offered to Paris the following year. But there is another version of the facts about this urban legend…
Legend has it that, in 1888, regarding the EXPOThe Barcelona Chamber received the offer to host the Eiffel Tower, but rejected. The 300 -meter tower will be over, so that it would go to Paris, which would welcome the Expo the following year and where it became the most iconic symbol in the city.
Over the years, various media have told this story, even though there was no evidence that supported it. But it comes to complain about the truth.
Yes, it is true that Barcelona rejected, at that time, three monumental towers who would rival Paris today. However, contrary to what is told and what exists today in Paris, None of the towers was proposed by Gustave Eiffel.
Second Harry Carme In the work “A Barcelona rejected” (2017), there were three proposals to build a large tower like Paris: one of madeiraanother of stone, brick and ironand a third that, yes, would be like that of Eiffel, built in iron and even higher than that of Paris.
A “Torre Lapierre”
The first of the towers, the madeirahe was named after Lapierre was, “a proposal made by a French group of Toulouse who wanted to reach a height, considered a foolhardy at the time, of 200 metros”.
There is evidence of this proposal in the second edition, published in September 1886, of the newspaper La Exposición, the official agency of the contest, where it is specified that “the tower has 15 floors, in which restaurants and cafes can be installed; the climb to the tower will be made by two elevators and a very smooth ladder that will be placed around the elevator well”.
However, in the end the project came to nothing, as explained by High, cited by El Nacional: “Lapierre did not get the exhibition organizers to assume the high expenses that the construction of the tower would implicate.”
To “Torre Condal”
The second proposal was named Condal Torre and was designed by a local architect, Pere Falqués I Urpí. It was a Iron tower, stone and brick which, according to great, showed “a solid but heavy architecture, without lightness, unattractive.”
Despite the enthusiasm, this Tower of 210 metros It was also built.
A “Torre Carbonell”
The third, called Carnenell Tower, It was the one that would resemble the Eiffel Tower. According to great, “it was expected to have 350 metros at height, a height never seen before in Europe ”.
In addition, the tower would be built “exclusively in iron”that is, the same material of the structure in Paris.
According to El Nacional, this third plan, in any case, was also discarded due to Lack of time and public funding.
Historical inaccuracies
There is no documentary evidence of Eiffel’s hypothetical proposal to lift his tower in Barcelona. More Dates do not coincide.
Eiffel presented his tower to the French civil engineers’ association on March 30, 1885, while in Barcelona an agreement was only reached with Eugenio Serrano Casanova as promoter of Expo on 18 June 1885.
This is what the Spanish journalist, Lluís Permanyerhe explained in an article on, in 2009, where he stated that Eiffel’s alleged proposal “It is a simple urban legend that spreads like an oil stain”.
The true Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889 – even in time of Expo Paris and, curiously, in the year in which the centenary of the French Revolution was celebrated.
