Makeover for first storey of Eiffel Tower

Bateg (VINCI Construction France), in a joint venture with architects Moatti et Rivière and design office Ginger Sechaud Bossuyt, has won the contract to upgrade the first storey of the Eiffel Tower.

The design-build project, worth €25m, concerns an area of 4,586 sq. metres, i.e. about five sixths of the storey's total floor area.
It calls for the reconstruction of the Eiffel and Ferrié pavilions and the three lift-access buildings, as well as the refurbishment of the façades of the restaurant. In the outside areas, replacing part of the flooring with a glass floor, equipped with a guard rail entirely in glass, will give visitors the impression of ”floating in space”.

The project will also contribute to reducing the attraction's environmental footprint, thanks, notably, to the use of renewable energies (solar; wind; and hydraulic by putting fresh and waste water through a turbine) and a LED-type lighting system, and the harvesting of rainwater.
The works will be launched in 2012, and take 18 months to complete.