The Journey from Engineering Utilitarian Endeavors to Artistic Ones

In this episode of The Engineering Passion Express, we take you on a journey from working on projects that have utility, or known value, to the more abstract world of art.  

This story is told through the lens of Gustave Eiffel, French Engineer and bridge builder! You know his tower, but this story is an imaginative telling of how he went from someone focused on practical structures like railway bridges, to building icons, much of his inspiration stemming from a project he was selected to work on previously! It uses some historical information from the small amounts available about the personal life of Eiffel, along with a little bit of fantasy to fill in the gaps. 

Join me and learn how someone like Eiffel, a man of calculation and precision, could change his personality and risk it all on a gamble!

If you find yourself a bit reserved in your risk-taking, but you know you want to create something great, this is an episode for you. Let's take that journey together. Climb aboard now and listen!

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

It's the mid-1880s in Paris. For years Gustave Eiffel has built for function. His bridges stretched across valleys, his viaducts defied gravity, his structure stood not as monuments, but as solutions. He was an engineer, bound by the certainty of numbers, the unyielding laws of physics. His work was practical, his calculations precise. But then a man came to him with an idea. An idea that had nothing to do with utility, nothing to do with necessity. It was a monument, a statement, a symbol. Eiffel had always believed in structure, in weight and balance and stress and force. But this was something else. This was not about what could be built, but what should be built. And in that moment, something shifted in him. He had spent his life proving what was possible. Now, for the first time, he was being asked to imagine. Gustave Eiffel was no artist. Not yet.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02

But soon, he would be able to stick with me.

SPEAKER_02: 3:04

If you stepped off that train on a certain day, you probably would have found a coffee house somewhere with two men meeting. And what these two men were discussing would become an icon in the future. And this discussion would not only lead to the creation of an amazing piece of art, but it would change both of the men's lives. Now I'm gonna set a scene here doing a terrible set of accents between the two men conversing in a coffee house.

SPEAKER_03: 3:44

Cafe noir, please. Two tablespoons of coffee, 180 milliliters of water. I'll have a cafe au lait. However the house chooses to express their preferences. Mr. Eiffel. I am an artist, I am a sculptor.

SPEAKER_02: 4:11

And I am looking to create an art piece of exquisite beauty and of grand scale. It's called Liberty Enlightening the World.

SPEAKER_03: 4:26

And it's going to be France's gift to America. Mr. Bartholdi. I am an engineer, not an artist. I deal in calculation and precision. Not in form. What is it that you're looking for from me? Well, Mr. Rifle. For my sculpture, it's going to be made out of pure copper.

SPEAKER_02: 5:05

It's going to stand 93 meters tall. And it is going to need an internal structure that can support its weight. I've heard of your engineering prowess. And I believe you're the right person for this work. Do you believe you can provide the services that I'm looking for? Mr. Bartoldi. Well I believe we can engineer a structure, certainly. We'll need to look at a number of considerations for a structure that size. We need to think about the weight that it has to support, but also of the wind loads that could be significant at that height. What I'll need from you is some drawings of the outside and what you think the inside will look like. From there I'll work with my team, do some preliminary calculations and concept design, come back to you with a price and a timeline in three months.

SPEAKER_03: 6:09

That sounds good, Mr. Eiffel. I'll tell you what.

SPEAKER_02: 6:15

Three months from now I've been invited to a party. All of Paris' elite will be there. How about you meet me there? You give me your bid. We have a little fun for the evening. And then we figure out what the next steps are from there. That sounds great, Mr. Bartholdi. Before you go, I would like to ask you a question. You're a man of significant capabilities.

SPEAKER_03: 6:49

What makes you want to pursue art? Mr. Eiffel. It is not art that I pursue. But societal change. Art is a means to ushering in a new era.

SPEAKER_02: 7:09

Or to change values.

SPEAKER_03: 7:13

Or we may use symbols, but the purpose isn't the symbol itself. It's the change. That's interesting.

unknown: 7:24

Mr.

SPEAKER_03: 7:25

Bartoldi, I don't in particular I've never thought that way. See, when I build a bridge, a route that used to take two hours may now take 15 minutes. And all of the benefit from that can be quantified and calculated. So I'm always working on things that I know are useful. For me, Mr. Eiffel, it's not always so clear. How was your cafe ole? It was delightfully creamy today. How about your cafe noir? The same as always.

SPEAKER_02: 8:10

Thank you for your time today. I look forward to meeting up again in a few months to discuss our work. Thank you, Mr. Eiffel. Now that we're through my dreadful acting, let me tell you a little bit about what I imagined took place. I imagine as Eiffel strolled down the street, leaving a conversation with Bartholdi, thinking on the purpose of what art is, he pondered.

SPEAKER_03: 8:41

The purpose of art is to create societal change in values.

SPEAKER_02: 8:51

As he continues down the street, looking around himself on the way to his office, he sees a society that values art. So a society that values a change in society. That didn't seem right.

SPEAKER_03: 9:10

He sees painters, he sees sculptors, he sees actors, he sees writers. And he thinks to himself if art is societal change and I create a bridge that changes the way people move or exchange goods.

SPEAKER_02: 9:35

Is that art? That's something I think he'd have to ponder more on and calculate the answer to. He arrives a few steps from his office and starts walking in. Maurice Kickla, an architect employed by Gustave Eiffel, starts bombarding him with the problems of the day. They start to talk through some of the challenges that their projects are facing. And Eiffel makes the big decisions on calls for things that have financial impacts. And he likes to know or look over the calculations that are taking place and do a spot check. All this takes Eiffel's mind off of the thoughts of art versus engineering and the purpose of art and focuses it squarely where it usually is. Of course, after an hour or two of this conversation, Maurice Kecklin shows him a sketch and says, Gustave, I've been thinking about a tower we could build for the upcoming World's Fair. And he shows him a sketch, and it's a very tall tower. It's not quite the image that you imagine in your mind today, and Eiffel falls back into his normal pattern of thinking about utility first, and says, No, we have enough going on, we do not need another project. And from there, the days roll on, just as they normally do, dealing with calculations and finances and problems and logistics. So Gegla and Eiffel are reviewing the Statue of Liberty project. Gegla goes through his concerns about the difficulty in the logistics of designing for something that's got such an irregular structure because it's actually a piece of art rather than a typical building or system that they work in. But nonetheless, Eiffel says, let's work up what we think it would cost, include a little bit more for the challenges that we're gonna have to face, and let's put a proposal in front of Bartoldi. And Kecla says, sure, we can do that, and goes about his way. As the three months have passed, it's time for Gustave to meet up with Bartoldi at a gambling party for the upper echelon of French society. So Gustave shows up at the party and runs into Bartholdi. As the two men talk their sounds of roulette and baccarat being played, and Bartoldi says, Why don't we pick a table and play? And Gustave responds, I am a calculated man, I am an engineer. There's not much that I don't do without calculation. These games of chance, their probabilities are set so that the house always wins. And Bartoldi looks at him and says you are right. I could be so calculated as you are. I could understand that the expected outcome of these games is a loss. But that's when you separate the games from the activity we're here for. The shared experience of French society. We're here to speak of projects, we're here to speak of business, we're here to make connection. All of these items hold tremendous value. And when you compare the value of what I've just mentioned against the possible loss at the tables, and the expected value can only be positive. And Bartholdi, who is a man of art, has once again pressed Gustave, a man of calculation, to question his values. So Gustave Eiffel continues to speak to Bartoldi all night about the business of the Eiffel Tower and the structure needed to be built, about the price and the timelines, and Bartoldi accepts the proposal. Bartholdi also likes to have fun, and he convinces Gustave Eiffel, man of business, man of calculation, to loosen up, to enjoy the evening, to get some pleasure out of what started as a work event.

SPEAKER_03: 14:26

Because that's what artists seek. They seek pleasure in their work.

SPEAKER_02: 14:32

So following this event, Eiffel puts his company on liberty enlightening the world, or the Statue of Liberty as we know it today. And they build a successful project, a project that does enlighten the world. A project that very few people in America would say they've never heard of even today. As Eiffel continues meeting with new people, picking up new projects, and meeting with his staff internally, one day Keikla comes back to him with a new picture of his proposed tower and says, Look at how beautiful this structure is. We should be proposing this for the World's Fair coming up in 1889. Gustave takes the tower picture and looks at it. He thinks to himself, this is quite a stunning tower.

SPEAKER_03: 15:31

But what utility does it have? And he strokes his beard and he looks out the window and he thinks to himself Have we ever done a project like this? And then he realizes the closest project would be Liberty Enlightening the World.

SPEAKER_02: 16:01

Oh, and that brings him back to all the thoughts about all the conversations he ever had with Bartoldi. What is the purpose of art to create societal change? What can you afford to lose? And as these thoughts race through his mind, it's like the picture changes. He remembers that stroll on the way back to the office from the first time that he met with Bartholdi. Art is a societal change. And he remembers walking down the street, seeing all of the artists at work, the painters on the street, the writers at the cafe, the sculptors sculpting out in the open, trying to capture the essence of nature.

SPEAKER_03: 16:53

And he thinks to himself, this isn't the world that's coming. This world values something different than what the future should value.

SPEAKER_02: 17:06

The future should value scientific discovery. It should value industrialization. It should value engineering and calculation abilities. And now the tower was no longer about utility. It was something Eiffel had to do to bring about the world that he thinks should exist. Of course, he thinks to himself on the financial side, being the man of calculation that it is. How will I afford to build this? How can I finance this? What will it cost? What will the value be? How will I recoup the money? And some of what goes through his head changes again. What can I afford to lose? If you spent every dime of the fortune that you've made in your first fifty-seven years of life on a tower that stood over Paris, you might not have any money left. But you might have reputation. Reputation and worldwide fame that can easily be produced to make more money. And Gustave was overwhelmed with envy for Bartholdi, thinking, That man makes this look so easy to be so carefree with huge sums of money that everything will work out. Not quite certain on how he's gonna proceed.

SPEAKER_03: 18:38

He looks at Cakela and he says, Let's do it. Let's propose the tower.

SPEAKER_02: 18:45

I'm not sure how I'm gonna raise the money. I'll have to work that out with the government. I'm not sure how I'm gonna get the land. I'll have to work that out as well. And just looking at your drawings, there's gonna be tons of challenges in building this thing. We got thousands of parts, we're gonna have tight deadlines to rebuild by the fair. It's so tall at 300 meters, we're going to have enormous wind loads. We're not even sure how to compute. And we're gonna have to worry about thermal expansion because of the enormity. And worker safety due to the extraordinary heights. You develop the concept further, and I'll start speaking with the right people. So everybody on the team went to work. Gustave met with a city and the government. They said, Well, there's no way that we're gonna fund this tower in its entirety. It might be a nice centerpiece for the World's Fair, but we have no idea how much value something like this has to the city of Paris. So Gustave, being the businessman that he is. Comes up with an idea. The city of Paris gives him the land and gives him some preliminary funding. And from there, Gustave will fund the tower the rest of the way with his own personal fortune. At the time, this is a significant amount of Gustave's fortune. He's in his 50s. It's not like he's going to recoup this if he loses it all, or at least it will take him some time to recoup it. He offers the city a proposal. Gustave will fund the remainder of the tower, and in return, he'll get the rights to the tower for 20 years. Gustave is making a lot of assumptions about the value of the tower, and how many people want to come see it, and how much they're willing to pay to go up it. And he thinks that 20 years is enough time to recoup his fortune, along with a small return representing the time value of money and other endeavors that he could have funded. The city eventually caves in and agrees to Gustave's demands. After all, they want an amazing centerpiece to the World's Fair. But they don't just give him free reign. They say, put a proposal together on what the tower will look like. You'll need to present this to a council that will decide on the feasibility. So Gustave's team is continually working on the design, tweaking the aesthetics, being worried about the aerodynamic loads while Gustave is herding everybody together that's responsible for this fair and aligning the business side up. And Gustave proposes the tower. And while it's amazing from an engineering perspective, France at the time is not filled with engineers. It's filled with artisans. They look at the tower, a bunch of straight steel beams all riveted together, and they don't see art. To them, art is details. It's the art they trend, it's sculpture, it's curves, its complexity, it's certainly not straight metal beams riveted together. But if you're measuring these artisans in the way Gustave is now seeing art, which art is making a societal change, then they are in fact not art people at all. They aren't making societal change. They're doing the arts and the crafts that their culture has valued for centuries. Instead, they should be thought of as tradespeople. And Gustave is coming in and he's disrupting their trade and saying that art is something else other than what they do. And that makes people angry. And they came at him hard. He's destroying France. This is not the aesthetic of the French people. This is not Paris. This will destroy our skyline and make it ugly. And they weren't happy. In hearing all that, Gustave has his entire personal fortune riding on the line. Can you imagine you've made millions of dollars over the last 30 years? And you're now pouring it all into this project. Taking a gamble to make art and having a bunch of artists tell you your idea is terrible. I don't think there's many people that could stand up to that level of scrutiny with that much on the line. We all like to think that we can, but why is there so few people in history with stories like this? Now there's not much written about Gustave in his day-to-day life. But I like to think about how did these people leave? What were the actual steps? What were the conversations they had? And how did they continue moving forward? And I can imagine after this, Gustave Eiffel is waking up every day. He's going to the mirror to get ready. Maybe brush his hair. And he asks himself, what am I doing this for? Why am I risking so much? Why am I taking a gamble that I can lose everything? He thinks of Bartholdi and he thinks of art. And he thinks of himself that art is societal change.

SPEAKER_03: 25:12

And he takes out a piece of paper and he starts to think about what he can do to calculate whether this is going to be successful or not.

SPEAKER_02: 25:26

Now normally a businessman starts and does a computation of value. What is the value of this thing I'm about to make? But art defies value, or at least it defies traditional value calculations from a utilitarian perspective. It could be worth nothing, or it could be worth a hundred million dollars when you think about paintings. And so he starts doing that value calculation, but he quickly realizes he can't. Every single thing he makes is massive assumptions with wide bands to where he's either going to be broke or super rich. And that's not really useful at all. So while he's racking his brain on how he can calculate something, how he can calculate his way out of this, since he's an engineer, he writes down the word art on the piece of paper. And then in a moment of brilliance, he makes it an equation. Art equals societal change. And seeing that on the paper, it all starts to come together. Art equals societal change, therefore art equals society after minus society before.

SPEAKER_03: 26:44

If society after equals society before, then art equals zero. Eiffel realizes. So he has created art because art in this equation does not equal zero.

SPEAKER_02: 27:11

And he decides he must continue. The team moves on, working on their 18,000 parts, working on their aerodynamics problems, working on the worker safety and thermal expansion problems. And all goes well, and we know the outcome. The Alpha Tower today is iconic, and it was considered a masterpiece of the time at the 1889s World Fair in Paris. And for a man like Gustave, who wasn't much of a gambler, who had to calculate his way into faith and staying on the path, the gamble paid off. In the first year alone during the World's Fair, Gustave recouped his entire investment. But he had negotiated the rights to the tower for twenty years. That means the remaining nineteen years were pure profit. Could you imagine owning something as iconic, something as amazing as the Eiffel Tower? Most people are happy to own their home. But Yustab owned an entire tower. Of course he had to gamble his entire fortune to do that. But that's not even quite fair. Because what can he afford to lose? If he had lost all the money in his bank account, he would still have his business, he would still have his reputation. The thirty years of work that he had done to build the skills that he had and the company that he had didn't disappear. Sure he'd be set back on money, but it's not like he wouldn't be able to eat ever again. It's not like he wouldn't have nice clothes. He just wouldn't have a fortune to fall back on. But what is the point of a fortune if you can't do the work that you're interested in? Now I can imagine at a future meeting in a coffee house, Bartoldi and Eiffel get together for a third time in their lives. The waitress comes over and asks them what they'll have. Bartholdi says Cafe Ola, please. However you like to make it. And Gustave looks at the waitress and says Cafe Olay. Two parts coffee, one part milk. And they discuss the Eiffel Tower and its success. Eiffel shares with Bartoldi the inspiration he got from their work on the Statue of Liberty, and how he never could have got through without understanding that art equals societal change, without the conversations that he had had with Bartoldi. And he shares his vision with Bartholdi that engineering and calculation in the future due to the Eiffel Tower is going to be elevated. And he shares how tourism in Paris has ignited from a number of people that want to see the tower. Talks a little bit about some projects that they would like to work together in the future. And then the two men part ways. Of course, engineering itself has changed after the Eiffel Tower is created. The tower applied classical beam theory at a scale never seen, which is commonplace today, but wasn't back then. Aerodynamics was studied in wind tunnels for one of the first times in recorded history, and many of the methods that we now use to design and shape modern scarscrapers were pioneered during the Eiffel Tower. Not to mention, not much later, it would change telecommunications and broadcasting, putting antennas at significantly higher elevations, and understanding that that would allow people to tune in via radio. And Eiffel was significantly changed himself. His reputation was elevated, his fortune increased, his name was memorialized, even today it's called the Eiffel Tower. And if we look at everything that Eiffel did, we can ask ourselves as engineers, am I being held back by a calculation? Just think about that.