Emmanuelle Iger – författare

Everything you always wanted to know about the Eiffel Tower ! This incredible monument that became the symbol of a city, Paris, and of a country, France, has a fascinating history. The Eiffel Tower is an iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It was named after the engineer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Erected in 1889 as the entrance arch to the 1889 World's Fair, it was initially criticized by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design, but has become both a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognisable structures in the world. The tower is the tallest structure in Paris and the most-visited paid monument in the world; about 7 million people ascended it in 2014. The tower received its 250 millionth visitor in 2010. The tower is 324 metres (1,063 ft) tall, about the same height as an 81-storey building. A 'Committee of Three Hundred' was formed, led by the prominent architect Charles Garnier and including some of the most important figures of the French arts establishment, including Guy de Maupassant, Charles Gounod and Jules Massenet: « We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection ... of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower ... To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years ... we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal. » Gustave Eiffel responded to these criticisms by comparing his tower to the Egyptian pyramids: 'My tower will be the tallest edifice ever erected by man. Will it not also be grandiose in its way? And why would something admirable in Egypt become hideous and ridiculous in Paris?'

Sitting on the banks of the river Seine, in the very heart of Paris, the Musée d'Orsay is known worldwide for its exceptional collection of impressionnist paintings. These works were absolutely scandalous at the time and for some, they still obviously are. Also, it provides a genuine feeling of time travel by recreating the context in which every single work of art has been produced. Its history is also full of twists and surprises. All of this contributes to making the Musée d'Orsay one of the most alive and striking museums ever. This audiobook will provide you with all the necessary elements to fully appreciate a visit to the museum in the flesh. You can also use it as a guide with an artistic point of view in your discovery of one of the most fascinating periods in human history. The Industrial Revolution is said by historians to have been the third most important event in human history, along with the mastery of fire and the discovery of agriculture. The Musée d'Orsay is the best place to get an understanding of the violence with which art struggled to express the changes of this period.