Where was Gustave Eiffel born?
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Gustave Eiffel was born in Burgundy, France, in the city of Dijon, Côte-d'Or, the first child of Catherine-Mélanie (née Moneuse) and Alexandre Bönickhausen (). He was a descendant of Jean-René Bönickhausen, who had emigrated from the German town of Marmagen and settled in Paris at the beginning of the 18th century. The family adopted the name Eiffel as a reference to the Eifel mountains in the region from which they had come. Although the family always used the name Eiffel, Gustave's name was registered at birth as Bonickhausen dit Eiffel, and was not officially changed to Eiffel until 1880.
Gustave Eiffel
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Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (born Bonickhausen dit Eiffel; ; ; 15 December 183227 December 1923) was a French civil engineer. A graduate of École Centrale Paris, he made his name building various bridges for the French railway network, most famously the Garabit viaduct. He is best known for the world-famous Eiffel Tower, built for the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris, and his contribution to building the Statue of Liberty in New York. After his retirement from engineering, Eiffel focused on research into meteorology and aerodynamics, making significant contributions in both fields.
Gustave Eiffel
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At the time of Gustave's birth his father, an ex-soldier, was working as an administrator for the French Army; but shortly after his birth, his mother expanded a charcoal business, and soon afterwards his father gave up his job to assist her. Due to his mother's business commitments, Gustave spent his childhood living with his grandmother, but nevertheless remained close to his mother, who was to remain an influential figure until her death in 1878. His father, however, did not play a big part in young Eiffel's early life. The business was successful enough for Catherine Eiffel to sell it in 1843 and retire on the proceeds. Eiffel was not a studious child, and thought his classes at the Lycée Royal in Dijon boring and a waste of time, although in his last two years, influenced by his teachers for history and literature, he began to study seriously, and he gained his baccalauréats in humanities and science.
An important part in his education was played by his uncle, Jean-Baptiste Mollerat, who had invented a process for distilling vinegar and had a large chemical works near Dijon, and one of his uncle's friends, the chemist Michel Perret. Both men spent a lot of time with the young Eiffel, teaching him about everything from chemistry and mining to theology and philosophy.
Gustave Eiffel
26085404#1
Born in 1844 in Vălenii de Munte, Pănculescu went to study abroad and graduated from the Zurich Science and Technology University, and then joined the 'Société des Établissements Eiffel' engineering company founded by Gustave Eiffel, recommended by famous Romanian poet Vasile Alecsandri. In 1878, Pănculescu returned to Romania in order to design and build the railway line between Predeal and Bucharest, which he completed in less than a year, despite the five-year contract initially drafted; this is attributed to the truly innovative system for joining the metal girders together in the pre-assembly phase, away from the tracks' location which he devised. In 1879, Gustave Eiffel made a documented visit to Pănculescu's house in Vălenii de Munte, in what is today the Nicolae Iorga Memorial Museum, where he was shown the technology used by Pănculescu for the construction of the railway line. Eiffel himself documented Pănculescu's contribution in his work titled 'Communication sur les travaux de la tour de 300 m' written in 1887. The same technology was used by Eiffel in building the Eiffel Tower. Gheorghe Pănculescu became the General Inspector of the CFR SA, the Romanian national train operator.
Gheorghe Pănculescu (engineer)
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Eiffel went on to attend the Collège Sainte-Barbe in Paris, to prepare for the difficult entrance exams set by engineering colleges in France, and qualified for entry to two of the most prestigious schools – École polytechnique and École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures – and ultimately entered the latter. During his second year he chose to specialize in chemistry, and graduated ranking at 13th place out of 80 candidates in 1855. This is what is thought to be one of the things that led young Eiffel into his career of engineering. This was the year that Paris hosted the second World's Fair, and Eiffel was bought a season ticket by his mother.
Gustave Eiffel
3609298#1
Gustav Fabergé, a Baltic German, was born in the city of Pernau (now Pärnu) in Livonia (present-day Estonia). His father, the artisan Pierre Favry (1768–1858; later Fabrier), moved to the Baltic province of Livonia, then part of the Russian Empire. Pierre had moved there by 1800 from the German city of Schwedt an der Oder. He married a Silesian merchant’s daughter named Maria Louisa Elsner (1776–1855). His family were Huguenots from Picardy living in Germany, having fled religious persecution in France at the end of the 17th century, after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In 1796, he registered as a master joiner in Pärnu under the names of Peter Fabrier in 1796 and Peter Faberg in 1808. Their son Gustav was born in Pärnu, where he adopted the surname of Faberge in 1828. Gustav was apprenticed to Andreas Ferdinand Spiegel in St Petersburg. He then worked for Johann Wilhelm Keibel in the 1830s.
Gustav Fabergé
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On 6 October 1868 he entered into partnership with Théophile Seyrig, like Eiffel a graduate of the École Centrale, forming the company Eiffel et Cie ("Eiffel and Company").
In 1875, Eiffel et Cie were given two important contracts, one for a new terminus for the line from Vienna to Budapest and the other for a bridge over the river Douro in Portugal. The station in Budapest was an innovative design. The usual pattern for building a railway terminus was to conceal the metal structure behind an elaborate facade: Eiffel's design for Budapest used the metal structure as the centerpiece of the building, flanked on either side by conventional stone and brick-clad structures housing administrative offices.
Gustave Eiffel
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Eiffel had meteorological measuring equipment placed on the tower in 1889, and also built a weather station at his house in Sèvres. Between 1891 and 1892 he compiled a complete set of meteorological readings, and later extended his record-taking to include measurements from 25 different locations across France.
Eiffel died on 27 December 1923, while listening to Beethoven's 5th Symphony, Second movement "Andante", in his mansion on Rue Rabelais in Paris, France. He was buried in the family tomb in Levallois-Perret Cemetery.
Gustave Eiffel
24309515#1
He was born in Pest, Hungary, the son of the actor, singer and theatre director Nikolaus Alois Hölzel (1785–1848) who managed the Landestheater in Linz, 1819–24. His mother Elisabeth Hölzel (née Umlauf) was an operatic contralto, daughter of composer Ignaz Umlauf, and sister of composer Michael Umlauf. At the age of sixteen, Gustav made his operatic debut in Sopron, and his career continued in Graz (1830–1832), the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna (1833–1837), and the Königstädtischen Theater in Berlin (1837–1838). He pursued further training in Paris in 1838 before joining the Stadttheater Zurich where he was committed from 1838-1840. In 1840, he joined the Hofoper at the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna.
Gustav Hölzel
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In 1887, Eiffel became involved with the French effort to construct a canal across the Panama Isthmus. The French Panama Canal Company, headed by Ferdinand de Lesseps, had been attempting to build a sea-level canal, but came to the realization that this was impractical. The plan was changed to one using locks, which Eiffel was contracted to design and build. The locks were on a large scale, most having a change of level of . Eiffel had been working on the project for little more than a year when the company suspended payments of interest on 14 December 1888, and shortly afterwards was put into liquidation. Eiffel's reputation was badly damaged when he was implicated in the financial and political scandal which followed. Although he was simply a contractor, he was charged along with the directors of the project with raising money under false pretenses and misappropriation of funds. On 9 February 1893 Eiffel was found guilty on the charge of misuse of funds, and was fined 20,000 francs and sentenced to two years in prison, although he was acquitted on appeal. The later American-built canal used new lock designs (see History of the Panama Canal).
Gustave Eiffel