In celebration of Bastille Day, Seth Godin’s blog included the following about the Eiffel Tower:

• It was designed at home on the kitchen table
• By someone who didn’t get their name on it
• It had never been done before, not guaranteed to get built or to work
• It was criticized by hundreds of leading intellectuals and cultural experts
• It wasn’t supposed to last very long
• It’s designed to be an icon, it’s not an accident
• People flock to it because it’s famous
• You can sketch a recognizable version of it on a napkin

I did a bit more research. In May of 1884, working at his kitchen table at home, Maurice Koechlin made an outline drawing of the scheme he and Emile Nouguier, both engineers with the Eiffel firm, had conceived of as the centerpiece for the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris, coinciding with the centennial of the French Revolution. Initially the owner of the company, Mr Eiffel himself, was not enthusiastic about the concept.

Working with others in the firm including Stephen Sauvestre, decorative arches, a glass pavilion to the first level and other features were added. Eiffel bought the rights to the patent on the design which Koechlin, Nougier and Sauvestre had taken out. The design was shown at the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in the fall of 1884. A competition for other tower designs was created but the Eiffel design won the competition. A contract was finally signed on January 8, 1887 to build the tower.

The writers, painters, sculptors, architects and “passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection….of the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower……All of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years…we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal.” (Eiffel had a permit for the tower to stand for 20 years; it was to be dismantled in 1909. The original contest rules for designing a tower included that it should be easy to demolish.)

What ideas have you had:

• That were created in your own mind?
• That have never been done before, not guaranteed to get built or to work?
• That have been criticized by others?
• That might not last for long?

If you continued to develop your idea where could it lead? Don’t stop too early. We’re here to help develop your ideas for a business, an invention, an app. Call for an appointment 931-456-4910 and we’ll pull together the resources you need to take your idea as far as is possible.

P.S. Don’t forget to stop by the Open House for our Make Camp (July 25 at 3:00pm) where kids from 7 through teens will be making things for a week; some created in their own minds, some that have never been made before…..and some that may just lead to an icon like the Eiffel Tower – who knows?