For a biography of Rodanet, see lot 73 (Jaeger-LeCoultre) Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923) Alexandre Gustave Eiffel was born in Dijon, France in 1832. After graduation from the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in Paris in 1855, he joined a Belgian firm which specialized in railway equipment. From 1857 to 1864 he worked as an engineer for the French Western Railway Company, building innovative bridges of strong, but lightweight wrought-iron. In 1866 he founded his own engineering company, Eiffel Inc., designing bridges for countries such as France, Spain, Austria, Egypt and Peru. In 1869 he completed the Rouzat Viaduct which crosses the Sioule River in France, built entirely of wrought iron. In 1876 he completed Paris? Magasin au Bon Marche, a department store made of iron and masonry. In 1879 he designed the Nyugati Railroad Station in Budapest, Hungary In 1884, Gustave Eiffel began studying towers and in 1885 he designed the interior workings for the Statue of Liberty, which was to be a gift symbolizing international friendship between France and the United States. I 1887, as Paris was planning for the 1889 World's Fair, it began looking at proposals for a building to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution and impress visitors to France. Eiffel's tower won the design competition. It was intended to be the tallest in the world, at 300m and was impressive because of its innovative design using cross-braced and latticed girders. The Eiffel Tower was met with a mostly positive response, although some people did not care for the new style of architecture. Today, the Eiffel Tower stands as the most famous French monument and some believe that Eiffel's innovative design prepared the world for modern skyscrapers and high-rise buildings.