Episode 1 of 4

Artists Against the Eiffel Tower

When: 1887-02-14
Where: Paris
Part of: Event of 1889: The Eiffel Tower is inaugurated in Paris. At 300 m (980 ft), its height exceeds

A petition criticizing the tower's aesthetics was published in February 1887.

Critics, including Guy de Maupassant, found the tower displeasing. A petition was sent to Adolphe Alphand and published in Le Temps on February 14, 1887. This reflects the contemporary controversy surrounding the tower's design.

Sources

Eiffel Tower Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-25

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.