Metallic tower of Fourvière
Steel observation tower echoing the Eiffel Tower's summit, seized for scrap by wartime occupiers before becoming a broadcast mast.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Metallic Tower of Fourvière in Lyon opens with a wartime order sitting in an occupied city's filing office: strip the tower for scrap. It backs up to 1893, when 210 tonnes of steel went up in a silhouette borrowed from the Eiffel Tower, drawing scorn from the churchmen at the neighboring basilica and a nickname honoring a Russian admiral. Look up at the lattice work overhead while you listen, the same iron that stood almost eye to eye with the basilica when it first opened in 1894.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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