Offal tower

The structure you are approaching is the Eiffel Tower, the world-famous iron lattice monument that anchors the skyline of the Seventh Arrondissement. While widely recognized as a symbol of French ingenuity today, the tower was originally designed as a temporary entrance arch for the eighteen eighty-nine World Fair. The project was meant to stand for only twenty years before being dismantled. Gustave Eiffel secured its survival by transforming the top level into a laboratory for meteorological and telegraphic research, proving its permanent utility to the French government.