The Eiffel Tower

Book Description
When it opened in 1889, just a few months before the Exposition Universelle for which it was commissioned, Parisians-from Dumas to de Maupassant-were appalled by the "useless and monstrous" tower Gustave Eiffel had planted in the heart of their beloved city. That enmity, however, was short-lived, and today the Eiffel Tower stands magnificently as one of our most beloved architectural landmarks, a testament to the artistry of 19th-century engineering, and the visual signature of the City of Light. The Eiffel Tower is a pictorial study of the great structure by acclaimed architectural photographer Lucienne Hervé, who began photographing the tower in his youth in the 1930s, and continued shooting it until he retired from photography in the 1990s. His ethereal images manage to convey the delicate balance between the tower's elegant ironwork and its sheer physical force. Ranging from pictorial studies of the tower in the Paris landscape to abstract compositions of iron and glass, his photographs are modern masterworks themselves. Architectural historian Barry Bergdoll, one of the preeminent scholars of 19th-century architecture, provides an introduction describing the controversial history of the tower.


About the Author
Lucienne Hervé is an architectural photographer whose work has been exhibited and collected worldwide. He lives in Paris. Barry Bergdoll is a Professor of Art History at Columbia University in New York.


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Greeted with derision and enmity in 1889 when it opened, La Tour Eiffel has become the icon of Paris and the symbol of France. The engineering marvel of the 19th century fascinates everyone, from artist to engineer, Parisian to tourist, and so it has throughout the life of photographer Lucien Herve (born in 1910 as Laszlo Elkan). From his earliest days in Paris of the 1920s through the post-World War II years to the present, Herve has continued his love affair with the tower, photographing it as a physical force and an aesthetic delight. This collection covers nearly 50 years of the artist's work and includes 45 black-and-white images of the tower's imposing vistas and lacy framework. The introduction by eminent architectural historian Bergdoll offers an excellent account of its construction, design, and place in architectural history. As a unique approach to a well-documented topic (though few books in English are dedicated to the tower alone), this volume is recommended for all photography, architectural, and social history collections as well as large academic and public libraries.-Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Museum of Art Lib., New York Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.


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