Sewing Surface: Ground Matters Beneath the Eiffel Tower

摘要

As a prominent figure in the skyline and a popular tourist destination, the Eiffel Tower plays a key role in the contemporary Parisian urban scene. Yet in the monument's shadow lies a landscape surface unable to challenge, accessorise or complement the (em)powered structure. The ground at the feet of the tower lays architecturally fallow. Such observation prompted a proposal to design a new ground surface. Critics originally dubbed the tower as naked or nude, and questioned its architectural and artistic value. To clothe or clad the Eiffel Tower as though it were a figural body, a statue, casts doubt on its gender and the proprietary boundaries between structure and ornament. Despite its lack of formal enclosure, the Eiffel Tower does not require cladding to extend its cultural value or sustain its pragmatic activities. Even as a remnant of an exhibition, the Eiffel Tower acts as giant scaffolding from which to witness the city. To add an external surface to this frame would be to practise Laugier's architectural principles whereby structure, geometry and rational logic dominate over spatial delineation, interiority, local building methods and material substance.