Comments on They Wouldn't. Would They?

that makes it the Space Needle!

Yay France!

Americans are too much snobs to ever touch the Eiffel Tower.

Holy crap, that's horrible. Why not turn the Arc d'Triomphe upside down, and fill the Seine with mayonnaise while they're at it?

Awesome! Wouldn't it be cool if the Eiffel Tower looked more like the Space Needle?

And maybe next they can modernize the Pyramids. You know, maybe add some curves, like the EMP. And after that, they could spiff up Big Ben; add some glass, like the new Seattle libarary. Yeah. That'd be cool.

Leave it alone, it's an icon. I would hate it if the the Space Needle looked like the Eiffel Tower and vice versa. Both are great examples of their time. Puke.

This is so cool. It says Gustave Eiffel designed the tower to support temporary appendages or equipment like this. It's an organic design that is keyed off of the way the original tower is structured, but it shifts to a non-repeating pattern.

Y'll is just afraid to try shit. Gustave Eiffel knew how to live, though.

What's the point? Will we walk around up there, or dine, or BASE jump?

A) The structure is temporary, and designed to accomodate more people for the Tower's anniversary celebration.

B) Your reaction is similar to Parisians' reaction to the original tower. I think Monsieur Eiffel would be pleased.

Leave it to the French. First, that god-awful Pompidou Center. Then, the pyramid in front of the Louvre. Now this. Of course the Louvre pyramid does mark the final resting place of the Holy Grail...

Tsk, tsk!

When Eiffel unveiled plans for the Tower, all the "most important" artists in France drafted a petition decrying the "Americanisation of France". Once it went up for the 1889 World's Fair, everyone loved it. After the Fair, no one was quite sure what to do with it. Some thought about tearing it down, others proposed some wildly crazy alternative uses: roller coaster, geyser, lighthouse, etc. (Some of them were really ghastly.) Ultimately they left it more or less alone, but they still dressed it up from time to time. For the 1925 Art Deco Exhibit, there were patterns of lights forming stars up and down; it was really beautiful.

The lesson is that all the artists originally protested the Tower and then looked foolish afterwards. When I.M. Pei proposed the glass pyramid for the Louvre, they learned their lesson: everyone welcomed the change and kept quiet.

You'll get used to it. You'll probably even like it. But you can't expect it to remain the same forever.

(True story: I was showing an out-of-town friend around Seattle one day, and as we drove by the EMP he asked, "Oh, what are they tearing down here?")

It's temporary, retard. Fucking read the article, moron.

It is bold - I like that. It's organic in the way Eiffel's cast iron is organic - and it's a newer component, carbon fiber. It's very much a French thing - all the filigree definitely places this art in Paris. And it's so like the French to come out of nowhere with something like this. Why not?

that makes me want to cry.

They didn't want it, but he built it anyway.

hm, not crap. I like. Temporary.

Mobile. Sans serif. Tres bien.

Et exactemente ou est qu'on trouve les croques monsieurs?

merde.

I'd love to see before/after comparisons that either both at night or both taken in the day... That said, it does look very Space Needle-ish, and no 120 year-old structure should look Space Needle-ish.

"Serero Architects in Paris have submitted plans to build the TEMPORARY addition to the city's most famous building, which would double the capacity of the public viewing area on top floor."

It won't matter at all from the tower's best angle - the most comfortable angle to gaze at it from if you are in Paris SDF in the evening.
One question: will they have to redo the millions of tourist models they sell all over city?
One other more philosophical question: will this make the Las Vegas replica more authentic than the one in Paris?

Of course when the Space Needle is 120 years old people will be debating whether its appearance should be altered. (Seattle will probably still be debating whether to build a light rail system, but I digress). Maybe it just takes time for a structure to go from bold and stunning to hideously ugly to a classic work of art.

The Space Needle is just having a midlife crisis. It's too old to look sparkling new but too young to be revered as a masterpiece like the Eiffel Tower. As someone who predates the opening of the Space Needle to Worlds Fair revelers by less than a week I know the feeling...

My god, it IS the space needle! With a wide stance!

awesome.

I love it!

(caveat - I've been there four times since I was 16, and love the post office at mid-section)

Gonna be fun ...

This is awesome! I love it too!

fuck. is NOTHING sacred anymore?
glad I got to see it before it turned into a starkly mess. fuck sparkles.

WHAT.

Man, this would be way cooler if the new platform looked more like a giant sombrero.

@15, try Café Presse 12th or Le Pichet on 1st because ça ne fait rien, j'ai du papier. Ou peut-être, des saucisses sans doute.

I didn't know you could undo a circumcision.

Oh, and Marcel Duchamp put a moustache on the Mona Lisa. Mon dieu!

@10

"When I.M. Pei proposed the glass pyramid for the Louvre, they learned their lesson: everyone welcomed the change and kept quiet."

Really? I spent the summer of 1989 in Paris, and I heard nothing BUT complaints and bitching about the Pei pyramids.

And while I'm hardly a Francophile, I had to agree with what seemed to be at the time the popular opinion: I think the Pei pyramids are butt-ugly and a horrid stylistic clash with the Louvre surroundings.

Little Eiffel, Little Eiffel