Gustave Eiffel

Gustave Eiffel (December 15, 1832 - December 27, 1923), French architect.

- Gustave Eiffel -

Born Alexandre Gustave Eiffel in Dijon, Côte-d'Or, France, he is most famous for building the Eiffel Tower, built from 1887-1889 for the 1889 Paris Universal Exposition in Paris, France, as well as the armature for the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, USA. He also designed ironwork for bridges.

Gustave Eiffel also designed La Ruche in Paris, that would, like the Eiffel Tower, become a city landmark. A three-storey circular structure that looked more like a large beehive, it was created as a temporary structure for use as a wine rotunda at the Great Exposition of 1900. When the exposition was over, it was dismantled and re-erected as low-cost studios for artists. Relocated in the "Passage Danzig" in Montparnasse, it would be called La Ruche.

At La Ruche, the rent was low and no one was evicted for non-payment. In the history of mankind, like Montparnasse itself, few places have ever housed so much talent. At one time or another in those early years, Guillaume Apollinaire, Ossip Zadkine, Moise Kisling, Marc Chagall, Nina Hamnett, Fernand Leger, Jacques Lipchitz, Max Jacob, Blaise Cendrars, Chaim Soutine, Amedeo Modigliani, Constantin Brancusi, called the place home. First promoted by art dealers such as Henry Kahnweiler, today works by these desperately poor residents of La Ruche sell in the millions of dollars.

In his later years Eiffel began to study aerodynamics.

Alexandre Gustave Eiffel died on December 27, 1923 in his mansion on Rue Rabelais in Paris and was interred in the Cimetiere de Levallois-Perret, in Paris.

Famous buildings

• Eiffel Tower
• Statue of Liberty