One great way to get adventurous folks amped up about scaling landmarks is to make the act of being way-the-heck-up-high even freakier. The Eiffel Tower is the latest to get a stomach-flipping glass floor 60m above the teensy little people on the pavement below.
In order to mark the Parisian attraction’s 125th anniversary, Moatti Riviére Architects came up with a plan to modernise the 5000sqm lowest level, which hadn’t seen a significant tune-up in three decades.
There’s a revamped souvenir shop and restaurant; a small cinema showing the history of the iconic iron giant; and interactive installations to teach a bit more background about the structure itself. The ol’ gal’s going to be a little self-propagating eco-generator as well, with solar panels, wind power and rainwater recovery all integrated into the new scheme.
The new first floor.
But c’mon. The glass floor is definitely going to get the attention. Would you step out on it and look directly down? (Or… lay down on it and look directly up?) Whether you’d brave it or no, the renovation was meant as a means to turn the area into a stay-a-while hang-out than stopgap on the way to the top (although I’ll be damned if that pic from 1900 doesn’t make it look particularly gorgeous).
Let’s just keep our fingers crossed it doesn’t crack like the Chicago’s nutso 457m-in-the-air Skydeck (even though everything was totally fine and no one got hurt and it wasn’t a big deal because it was designed that way). C’est la vie! [The Guardian]
Pictures: Associated Press, La Tour Eiffel