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Some buildings transcend their mere construction to become larger-than-life symbols of their locations. Think the Empire State Building, the Sydney Opera House or the Burj Khalifa. But the Eiffel Tower stands out from the pack because of its 19th-century age—and its legacy as one of the world’s most replicated structures.
A celebrated architectural feat, the Eiffel Tower opened to the public in Paris on May 15, 1889. The tower was designed by engineers Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier along with architect Stephen Sauvestre as a tribute to the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution and as the centerpiece of the country’s 1889 world’s fair, called the Exposition Universelle. It was named after engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company created the structure. But while the then-1,024-foot behemoth—the tallest building in the world at the time—was proudly doling out specially designed souvenir medals to its very first admirers, it was also giving rise to generations of clones.
In the years since the Eiffel Tower’s grand opening, many carefully scaled replicas and inspired-by structures have popped up around the world, from famous examples like the one at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas to more obscure tributes like the 39-foot Australian version perched atop an Italian restaurant in Brisbane, and Indonesia’s Bamboo Eiffel Tower, made in honor of Dutch Queen Wilhelmina’s coronation. But what makes the giant iron pylon so irresistible, especially considering its relatively simple construction? Exactly that, says Matilda McQuaid, acting curatorial director at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York.
“There’s no decorative element—it’s like the structure is the decoration,” McQuaid says. “As a feat of engineering, what was really so important about it was how it presented more than anything: stripped down to the absolute basics. You think 50 years later, in terms of modernism in Europe, that still pervaded in the construction of skyscrapers.”
By leaving the tower largely unadorned, the engineers allowed it to speak for itself, effortlessly showcasing the technology of the time. It was the physical embodiment of showing, not telling.
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“The Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 World Expo, and that was the exposition that really celebrated advancements in technology,” McQuaid continues. “It was a symbol of modernity: The viewing platforms, the actual vertical transportation of the elevator, those were also examples of that technology.”
The tower’s aesthetic and technological associations have persisted over time, inspiring everything from observation towers (Tokyo, Japan) and now-demolished wooden radio towers (Ismaning, Germany) to television towers (Harbin, China) and cellphone towers (Parizh, Russia).
“I was talking to someone recently about this and they were saying when they were in [the Palestinian city of] Ramallah—this was probably in 2010 or so—that miniature Eiffel Towers were used for TV antennas on top of houses,” says McQuaid. “Certainly, it’s expanded worldwide in terms of its use in industry.”
But while technological prowess might be one of the tower’s main selling points, it’s also become synonymous with its home: Paris, France. It’s nearly impossible to imagine Paris without its Eiffel Tower, or to think of Paris without picturing the Eiffel Tower.
“I’m fascinated by the different reasons and rationales people have for building these towers,” says Jon Worth, a British German dual national who works as an independent consultant and railway activist. “I love the Serbian ones, where people who’d moved to France as guest workers wanted to take something of France back to Serbia when they retired. … It’s sort of generic and personal at the same moment.”
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For the last several years, Worth has been compiling a large inventory of Eiffel Tower replicas and loading as many as he can geolocate into an interactive GeoGuessr map. His interest in the tower’s prolific appeal started during the Covid-19 pandemic and quickly turned into something much bigger.
“I stumbled across this Eiffel Tower in my neighborhood in Tempelhof, Berlin, posted about it on Twitter, got a response from Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, and it snowballed from there,” he says. “I’m from a family of geographers and like mapping things.”
Thanks to Wales’ retweet, people from around the world have sent Worth information about Eiffel Tower dupes in their own backyards. Including derivatives, resemblances and replicas, he’s tracked down hundreds of towers throughout six continents. And along with technological utility and Francophile romanticism, another reason for building an Eiffel Tower replica has emerged: the name “Paris.”
Whether it's Paris, Michigan, or Paris, Tennessee, or Paris, Arkansas, or the aforementioned Parizh, Russia, if you live in a place called Paris, an Eiffel Tower may be within spitting distance.
Paris, Texas, native Walt Reep knows the phenomenon well. “Probably over 1,000 people come each year to see the tower and photograph themselves,” he says of his city’s landmark.
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The Paris, Texas, Eiffel Tower was originally completed in 1993. A few years later, it was adorned with a shiny red cowboy hat, bringing its height to 65 feet. Today, it’s decorated with 27 LED lights that bathe the structure in different colors depending on the season. (It’s also available for gender reveals.)
“Many people do come to Paris because of its name,” says Reep, who owns several businesses in the Texas town, including a soda fountain called Sundae in Paris and a wine bar and creperie called Vin de Paris. “Since we were on the path of the eclipse, we know there were people from over 25 countries and close to every state that came to view it in Paris because of the name.”
Perhaps researchers at Palmer Station on Anvers Island, Antarctica, might find inspiration to build a tower replica when gazing out onto the snow-covered tip of the land’s Paris Peak. Then, there won’t be a continent left on Earth without an Eiffel Tower of its own.