This Tuesday at 7 p.m. comes out in preview and private screening in Mulhouse, at Kinepolis, the film Eiffel with Romain Duris. A feature film which traces the life of the engineer from Dijon, Gustave Eiffel, who built the most famous tower in the world. But what we know less is that this tower was designed by …. an Alsatian! Maurice Koechlin, born in Buhl in 1856. He completed his secondary studies in Mulhouse and then joined the company founded by Gustave Eiffel as an engineer.
Eiffel doesn’t like the foregrounds at all
In 1884 Gustave Eiffel asked Maurice Koechlin for an idea for the Universal Exhibition in Paris which would take place 5 years later. The engineer from Haut-Rhin then drew the first plans of a pylon 300 meters high. Eiffel doesn’t like it at all. Maurice Koechlin therefore goes to see an architect who dresses and transforms his plans into a monument. Gustave Eiffel was won over. The Eiffel Tower was born.
The Alsatian’s participation is rarely mentioned in the film
In the film Eiffel the participation of the Alsatian is only very partially mentioned. There are also several inaccuracies, warns Jean-David Koechlin, the engineer’s great-grandson: “It’s a made-up love story. It is absolutely not for love that the tower took the shape of an A and the initial project was always 300 meters“.
The release of the film therefore allows the Koechlin family to tell the true story of the birth of the Eiffel Tower. and to recall its Alsatian origins.
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