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How much does it cost to visit the eiffel tower.

To check the prices for the Eiffel Tower, please visit this page on the official Eiffel Tower site . The Eiffel Tower online ticket office provides the official prices. The adult price applies to adults 25 years and over.  There are discount rates for young people (12-24 years old), children (4-11 years old) and for those with disabilities. Admission is free for children under 4 years old. The price of the ticket varies upon how you go up (elevator and/or stairs) and the destination (2nd floor or the upper floor) you select. 

The desired visit date is not available, what should I do?

Certain days (weekends, days during peak season between July and August) are in high demand and we sell out quickly, especially for e-tickets for the top floor, which are the most popular. If you are flexible, select another date that is shown as available. The dates marked in orange indicate that the last tickets are available. Lined out or grayed out dates are no longer available. If there is no more online availability, note that tickets to visit the Eiffel Tower are also sold on site at the ticket offices at the monument. Regardless, we sell our tickets online up to 60 days in advance (for lift tickets) and 14 days in advance (for stairs tickets to second floor). If you can, plan your visit well in advance, so you will have the choice of date, destination and time.  

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On the online ticket shop, you can buy up to 9 tickets for the same order. Groups who want to buy tickets, regardless of the number, must use the ticket office site reserved for groups.

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How To Visit the Eiffel Tower in 2024: Tickets, Hours, Tours, and More!

Brandon Schakola Last Updated: February 21, 2024

The Eiffel Tower is synonymous with Paris. Who doesn’t want to visit this iconic monument and one of the biggest attractions in Europe? Tickets to the Eiffel Tower are hard to come by but don’t worry. This article will cover everything you need to know about how to visit the Eiffel Tower, from tickets to tours.

Pro Tip: Planning your trip to the Eiffel Tower in Paris? Bookmark this post in your browser so you can easily find it when you’re in the city. Check out our guide to Paris and the Eiffel Tower for more planning resources and a list of the best tours of the Eiffel Tower .

Visiting the Eiffel Tower: What We’ll Cover

Gustav Eiffel’s monument hasn’t always been the jewel of Paris, but it certainly is to millions of visitors today. There are three levels you can visit on the Eiffel Tower, so you’ll need to plan your trip accordingly.

All tickets to the Eiffel Tower can be hard to get during the peak summer season, so be sure to plan ahead. Keep reading to learn how to visit the Eiffel Tower and what you need to know.

• Opening hours and tickets
• How long to budget for your visit
• How to get there
• What to see when visiting the tower
• Guided tour options
• Facts and history of the Eiffel Tower
• Best time to visit
• Places to eat inside and nearby

Eiffel Tower Opening Hours and Tickets

Opening Hours:

The Eiffel Tower monument is open daily from 9 am to 12:45 am (last admission at 11:45 pm). Opening hours are subject to seasonal changes, so be sure to check the official website for up-to-date hours on the day of your visit.

There are five different types of admission tickets for the Eiffel tower at varying prices. Some include access by the stairs or the elevator. Here is a quick summary of ticket types and prices.

Address: Champ de Mars

We also run a few amazing Eiffel Tower tours that get 5-star reviews. It’s a great way to guarantee admission and hear insider stories with a local guide!

Not ready to book a tour? Check out our  best Eiffel Tower tours to take and why .

How Long To Spend at the Eiffel Tower

Short Answer: 3 hours

Assuming you get tickets or a tour to go up the Eiffel Tower, you should plan on at least three hours. As you’ll read in my below recommendations, I think this is best done in a half-day event including a meal and ideally champagne if you plan on doing things correctly.

If you are reading this then you are very possibly planning ahead for your trip. I recommend putting aside some additional sheckles to have a killer meal on the Eiffel Tower! Eating and exploring would take about 4 hours at lunch or 5 to 6 hours at dinner.

If you can’t get tickets or decide not to go up (which is a true mistake!) you should plan on spending 20 minutes walking through the area until you capture that picture of you touching the top of the Eiffel Tower.

How To Get To the Eiffel Tower

The preferred method of transport in Paris is the metro. The Eiffel Tower is located footsteps away from Camp de Mars / Tour Eiffel station which is on the RER C. You can also get off at the Ecole Militair on Line 8 or Bir-Hakeim on Line 6 which are both within walking distance. When you get out of the metro station look for the Eiffel Tower and you’re there!

You can take the 30, 42, 80, 82, 86 or Direct 2. Get off when you feel you are close enough to walk to the tower.

Luckily, you can see the Eiffel Tower from basically anywhere in Paris. Walk towards it!

Our Best Guided Tours of Paris

Likely to Sell out

Privileged Access Eiffel Tower Night Tour With Seine River Cruise

Sometimes the most amazing moments happen by chance. Other times, they are orchestrated by professionals. Our Eiffel Tower tour takes you on a cruise down the Seine River for incredible views of Notre-Dame and the Eiffel Tower. Champagne included, of course. Then you’ll be guided to the Eiffel Tower, skip the long lines, and head up the elevator to the second floor for a night to remember.

Top Selling

Ultimate Taste of Paris Food Tour in Le Marais

Embark on a culinary journey in Le Marais—one of the hippest neighborhoods in Paris. Most food tours in Paris offer cheese and wine, but we include a full, sit-down meal! Enjoy a feast of French cheeses, oysters, street food, boeuf bourguignon, crème brûlée, and more. This 3-hour food tour combines the best of Paris’ culinary heritage and you won’t find a better deal out there!

Not ready to book a tour? Check out our  best Paris tours to take and why .

What To See When Visiting the Eiffel Tower

You may read this and think, “You go to the tower, then you go up the tower, and finally, you see a great view. Right?”

In reality, there’s a lot more to do than you may expect. The structure is extremely tall and it is framed by two huge parks that occupy more than 2 million square feet of downtown Paris, France. In this section, we’ll explain what do to in, at the top, and around the Eiffel Tower.

First Floor, Second Floor, and the Summit

Yes, you should make every effort possible to go up the Eiffel Tower. The tickets start at €11.30, which is affordable enough for anyone who can afford a visit to Paris.

However, don’t think you can show up on a Saturday and say, “Two please!” These tickets are extremely difficult to get. You’re going to want to book ahead, especially if you’re looking to see the best view from the summit.

Hungry? Restaurants at the Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower may look like a thin, wiry structure but at any given moment there could be up to 3,000 people eating, drinking, or snapping selfies from 58 meters to 276 meters off the ground on the Eiffel’s three observation decks.

When I travel, I’m a bit of a bon vivant . We all work hard, so decompressing on vacation and enjoying the sweet fruits of our labor is super important.

This is why I always say, “If you can, you should go inside.” This goes for eating at Madame Brassiere or Le Jules Verne—if you can. Check out our dedicated article on eating at the Eiffel Tower to plan and even make reservations.

Not ready to book a tour? Find out if  Paris tours are worth it .

Eiffel Tower Tours Options

While seeing the Iron Lady is a wonderful experience if you go by yourself or with friends, the historical value is often lost on visitors. Joining a small group tour of the Eiffel Tower guarantees you get to skip all of the lines, learn from a professional historian, and see Paris’ most famous structure in all of its splendor. Here are our most popular Eiffel Tower tours:

Privileged Access Eiffel Tower Night Tour with Seine River Cruise

This top-rated tour is one of the best Eiffel Tower tours for families, solo travelers, and couples looking for a romantic evening. Your evening starts with a serene cruise on the Seine seeing the Louvre, Musee d’Orsay, and Notre Dam as the sun begins to set. On your way back, the Eiffel Tower will be lit up to guide your way to the elevator that will take you to the popular second floor. And with skip-the-line tickets, you’ll avoid the extra long lines in the evening!

See tour itinerary, price, and description

Paris in a Day Tour with Louvre, Eiffel Tower, and Notre Dame (includes river cruise)

Paris is home to three famous attractions and you’ll see all of them on this tour. It’s the perfect way to get to know this incredible city from the streets of Montmarte to the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. In just one day, you’ll take pictures of the famous Mona Lisa , gaze upon Notre Dame, cruise the Seine River, and view Paris from the second floor of the Eiffel Tower!

Twilight Magic: Eiffel Tower Summit Tour with Seine Cruise

This Eiffel Tower tour is the most sought-after tour we have in Paris. Not only do you sip champagne on a river cruise, skip the line past the general public, and get a local tour guide, but you also get to visit the summit of the tower for the best view in Paris! Oh, and you’ll even stop at the second floor before heading to the top. It’s an incredible deal that is worth every penny for the memories you’ll make.

Private Eiffel Tower Tour with Champagne and Seine River Cruise

Booking a private tour is always the way to go if your budget allows. With a private guide, you’ll hear explanations about what you’ll see during your Seine River cruise, then be escorted at your own pace past the lines at the Eiffel Tower. The private Eiffel Tower tour with a Seine River cruise is the most elegant way to visit the Eiffel Tower!

Eiffel Tower Climbing Tour with Summit Access

For the active traveler, this climbing tour of the Eiffel Tower is another solid choice. With skip-the-line tickets and a local guide, you’ll climb 674 steps to the second floor of the Eiffel Tower. Take in the awesome views from this popular level before getting in the elevator to the summit. You can enjoy your time on either level as long as you like, so don’t forget to make a restaurant reservation!

Not ready to book a tour? Find out if an Eiffel Tower tour is worth it .

Facts and History of the Eiffel Tower

• The Eiffel Tower is located in a park known as Champ de Mars which is in the 7th arrondissement of Paris in France.
• The tower was constructed to be the entrance to the World’s Fair in 1889 and took two years to build.
• It was built by engineer Gustave Eiffel whose innovative design has led to his name going down in the history books. Many said that a structure of this size simply couldn’t be built. I assume that motivated him even more.
• The Eiffel Tower is 1063 feet tall (324m) which makes it about 75 stories tall (14ft per story).
• On average, about 7 million people visit the tower per year making it one of the most visited (ticketed) buildings on Earth. It was constructed to display France’s engineering prowess at the World’s Fair and beyond. Today, it has become the emblem of Paris.
• Mountain Climbers: Apparently when the city decided to add more lights to the tower, approx 20,000 lights, they hired mountain climbers to scale the tower and attach them. I wonder what the electricians union thought about that?
• The tower is host to three levels, two restaurants, and various bars.
• Le Jules Verne, which is a Michelin star-rated restaurant on the second level of the tower. The second is named Le 58, which is on the tower’s first level, 58 meters from the ground.
• The absolute top level features a Champagne bar named “Bar A Champagne”. You don’t need a fancy name to sell a class of Champagne on the summit of arguably the world’s most romantic structure.
• Beyond that, there are multiple buffets, terrace bars, and even a macaroon bar (which makes sense).

Best Time To Visit the Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower is one of the most visited attractions on Earth with 7 million + visitors per year. Reserving ahead is the key to a positive and stress-free experience. If you can get the tickets, when is the best time to go?

At and after sunset is by far the most attractive time to visit the Eiffel Tower. The tower lights up every hour on the hour after sunset for 5 minutes until 1 am or 2 am depending on the season. The 336 lamps/projectors make the tower light up in a very sporadic fashion which is really a joy to look at.

Do a search for when sunset is the day of your visit and show up 45 minutes before sunset. Book your tickets anytime between 45 minutes before sunset to closure. This way you can see the tower at sunset and go up in the same evening.

You can enjoy the Eiffel Tower during the day as well and watch the light show from the ground at night.

An afternoon at the Eiffel Tower can be really great. The official website advises 1.5 hours for the 1st and 2nd levels and 2.5 hours for all three levels, but you can really stay as long as you like.

Visiting during the day allows you to explore and have a casual meal and or drink while walking around.

Try to get tickets to go up around noon. This way you can have a drink and meal while you are in the tower. If you don’t want to eat buffet food, reserve your tickets for later afternoon. Maybe after 4 pm. This way you can have some drinks on the tower at the end of your day before you get ready for dinner.

April 1 to Oct 31:

From April 1st to Oct 31st, the Eiffel Tower will be extremely hard to reserve. Make sure you reserve in advance to get the entry time you like.

I highly recommend joining a guided tour if you go in the summer. The guides really make the tower come to life and it often includes a sunset cruise on the Seine river. Make sure you read the details to know if the tour you are booking includes that. It is an awesome experience.

Nov 1 to March 31:

With the exception of Christmas, you basically will be able to have your pick on what time to visit the tower. I recommend you go in the afternoon as the temperatures may be warmer.

That said, you are going to want to see it at night evening in the winter. If this is the case, dress warm!

Places To Eat Inside and Nearby the Eiffel Tower

When you visit the Eiffel Tower, you have the option of dining in one of three fantastic restaurants on the Eiffel Tower. We’ve also included a few suggestions for great places to eat nearby, Fore more options, check out our article on the best restaurants near the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Madame Brassiere

This is a great restaurant with views over the Seine. The cuisine is also wonderful thanks to Michelin-star chef Thierry Marx who focuses on sustainable foods.

You can opt to eat in the classy restaurant or sit in the more relaxed lounge that also has great city views and is ideal for an evening drink and appetizers. Coming in the morning? They also serve breakfast that’s worth coming early for.

• Priority access to 1st level of Eiffel Tower
• A very high-quality meal crafted by Thierry Marx who received two Michelin stars at Sur-Mesure
• An experience you will not forget.

For me, it is a no-brainer. If you can plan ahead far enough to get the reservation, you should save the extra money for you and another person to enjoy this experience.

Address: Madame Brassiere

Le Jules Verne

The definition of bon vivant is a person who enjoys a sociable and luxurious lifestyle. The photo next to it had better be someone eating a meal at Jules Verne. The restaurant has received 1 Michelin star under all four chefs who have run Le Jules Verne.

Here, a meal will run you €190 – €230 per person for dinner excluding beverages—a five-course and seven-course menu respectively. It might not be for everyone, but if you can you should.

They have a slightly more affordable menu at €105 for lunch excluding beverages for a 3-course tasting menu. Eating at the Jules Verne is a special experience for anyone who can afford it and manages to get a booking.

You can book through their official website. They release timeslots 90 days in advance, so forget about booking a year ahead. You have two choices: the Main Rooms (overlooking the city) and the Alcove (overlooking the interior).

Main Rooms obviously go first, although the website tries to sell the benefits of the Alcove. You can sit down for lunch between 12 to 1:30 pm at 15-minute intervals.

Dinner sit-down times are 7, 7:15, and 7:30 pm. Expect a magnificent 3-hour dining experience for the 5-course menu and longer for the 7-course menu.

Address: Le Jules Verne

Bistrot Buffet

Throughout the 1st and 2nd floors, there are various buffets, snack bars, and shops that will satisfy your hunger or thirst. Exactly what you will expect from a stand-up counter service establishment. Definitely gets the job done.

If you manage to get the coveted ticket to the summit or top tier, definitely put aside a few euros for a glass of champagne. There is a small bar that serves champagne named Champagne A Bar . Very straightforward.

Near the Eiffel Tower

Café de l’Homme : €€€€ | Eiffel Tower Views —You could say this upscale bistro is more about the view than the food but many would say it’s about both. Just across the river located on Place de Trocadéro, this treat would definitely impress that special someone. Be sure to reserve a table with a view in advance or you will only see part of the experience.

Arnaud Nicolas : €€€ | French Cuisine —Enjoy a cut of meat? This institution has earned the most prized awards in France for preparation of pâté and foie gras among other dishes. This is a special meal so make reservations and come hungry.

Where To Stay in Paris

With a city as magnificent as Paris, it can be hard to find the perfect hotel at the perfect price. Explore the best hotels and places to stay in these incredible neighborhoods in Paris.

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Eiffel Tower Tickets Price

Same-day + sold out tickets.

Sometimes when we're leading one of our many Paris walking tours, we'll receive questions about visiting the most iconic attraction in the entire city.

That's why we created this post to review the many options for visiting the Eiffel Tower, from standard and combo tickets to dining at the top.

We'll also provide a lengthy comparison of all the different types of Eiffel Tower tours and tickets available.

• Plan Your Visit
• Elevator vs. Stairs
• The Levels Explained
• Sold-Out Tickets and Tours
• Deals and Combo Tickets

Tips From Locals and Travelers

Plan your visit.

In this section, we cover the best times to visit, how much time to devote , and  how to get here , as well as food and shopping options .

Best Times to Visit

The Eiffel Tower is one of the most popular destinations in Paris, so you can expect a crowd no matter when you come.

That being said, there are times when things are a bit quieter at this famous landmark.

June 21 - September 2nd

• 09:00 am - 00:46 (12:45 am)
• 23:00 (11 pm) - last elevator to the top

Rest of the Year

• 09:30 am - 23:00 (11:00 pm)
• 22:30 (10:30 pm) - last elevator to the top

As with most popular attractions in the world, you can rely on a few golden rules when it comes to the Eiffel Tower.

The first thing to keep in mind is that it will always be busier over the weekend when compared to most weekdays.

The second thing to note is that crowd sizes are at their smallest during the early morning and after dark. 

If you’re trying to avoid the busiest hours, plan on a weekday visit between the hours of 9:00 am - 11:00 am in the morning or 22:00 ( 10 pm) - 00:00 (12 am) in the evening.

Considering that the tower is lit up once the sun goes down, you may want to go later rather than earlier. 

Many visitors try to get tickets for the Eiffel Tower at sunset hoping to get to the top and see the city as the sun goes down, but it’s not as easy as you might think.

This is a pretty popular time of day to visit the landmark, so you can expect a large crowd.

Lift tickets (whether you purchase them online or when you arrive) require you to wait in line for the elevator to the 1st & 2nd floors as well as the line for the elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

If you don’t want to miss the sunset, we recommend getting a priority ticket so that you can at least skip the ticket line.

Priority tickets (purchased before arriving) allow you to skip the elevator ticket line at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower. 

You’ll still have to wait in a shorter line for the elevator, but you’ll be saving time by avoiding the ticket line, sometimes hours.

If you want to come at sunset, make sure to get one of these tickets and show up a little early just in case and  use this service to find out when you can expect the sun to set in Paris.

Several tourists note that weather can also play a factor in picking the best time to visit.

If you come at a time when it is windy, rainy, or foggy, chances are that you won’t enjoy the experience as much.

At times the wind and rain can get bad enough that they will actually close off the top of the tower.

Keep this in mind when purchasing tickets and use this forecast service to pick the best time for your trip. 

HOW MUCH TIME TO PLAN FOR

If you don’t intend to go to the very top, you probably won’t spend very much time here.

As a result, visitors who only intend to get a ticket for the stairs entrance to the 1st and 2nd floors should plan on spending at least 1 - 1 ½ hours at the Eiffel Tower.

You can’t purchase tickets for stairs access ahead of time unless you obtain them by taking a tour or buying a more expensive elevator access ticket.

However, there is no indication from online reviews of long waits for tickets for the stairs. 

For more information about this option, make sure to read our elevator vs stairs section.

Priority tickets for the 1st & 2nd-floor elevator will allow you to save some time that you might have otherwise spent in the ticket line, and you won’t need to climb up the stairs.

The line for visitors without priority elevator tickets.

Many visitors indicate that it can take an additional hour or more to get on the elevator from the 1st and 2nd floors to the very top, and you should keep that in mind if you want to get to the top in time for sunset.

There are no priority tickets for this elevator.

As a result, if you want to see everything and take the elevator to the very top floor, you should set aside at least 2 - 2 ½ hours .

This timeframe assumes that you have purchased priority access to the ground floor elevator or choose to take the stairs to the 1st & 2nd floors.

If you take the elevator from the ground floor without a reservation (priority e-ticket), you may need more than 3 hours total depending on the time of day and year. 

If you want to reach the top of the Eiffel Tower at a specific time, and you don’t want to walk up any stairs, make sure to purchase a priority ticket (skip-the-line) for entry at least 1 ½ - 2 hours in advance of your desired time.

There is no time limit on your tickets, so you are free to stay as long as you wish.

For more information on skip-the-line tickets, check our ticket information section .

You can also learn more about the various levels of the Eiffel Tower in our levels explained section .

Where Is the Eiffel Tower?

There are several different ways to get to the Eiffel Tower, which is centrally located and right along the River Seine.

Regardless of how you choose to get here, we recommend using this Google Maps link for directions .

There are 3 different metro stations that are a short distance from the Eiffel Tower.

 Trocadéro (9) and École Militaire (8) are approximately a 5-minute walk. Bir-Hakeim (6) is 3 minutes away by foot.

Champs de Mars (C) is a 1-minute walk away.

There are several bike tours that visit the Eiffel Tower.

Alternatively, there are also many bike rental companies operating nearby as well. Check out our post on the Best Bike Tours and Rentals in Pars .

By Boat: 

Located along the Seine, the Eiffel Tower is also easily accessible by boat. Consider pairing a visit to this iconic landmark with either before or after!

Check out our post on Best Boat Tours and Cruises in Paris to help you decide which company to choose.

Parking is limited around the Eiffel Tower, so we recommend that you park in an underground car park instead.

The Quai Branly car park is the closest, just 300 meters away!

EIFFEL TOWER TICKETS

You will need a ticket to get into the Eiffel Tower, and there are 4 different types of tickets available for the Eiffel Tower, each with an adult, child, and reduced prices.

Ticket Options Explained

Priority Tickets

But, before we get into the 4 options, it's important to understand what a priority ticket is.

These tickets (what the Eiffel Tower calls e-tickets) are only for the two ticket options that involve the elevator from the ground floor and are not available (nor usually needed) for tickets with stairs entrance.

There are no additional fees for these tickets.

It is highly recommended that you purchase them in advance if you want or need to take the elevators.

These are timed tickets, so wait times for the elevators to the 1st and 2nd floors of the Eiffel Tower for those with reservations (e-tickets) are minimal. 

These are essentially Eiffel Tower skip the line tickets , allowing visitors to avoid the queue entirely and head straight for the elevators, saving a lot of time.

The queues for those without reservations (therefore, those who need to wait in the ticket line) have been reported to stretch over 2 hours at peak season ( just watch this video ).

There are a limited number of priority tickets each day and they can sell out a month in advance, sometimes even longer.

Priority tickets are purchased on the Eiffel Tower ticket website or as part of some guided tours .

Stairs Entrance (to the 1st and 2nd floors)

This is the cheapest ticket option.

While many people will queue up to take the elevator from the ground floor to the second floor, there is also the option of climbing the stairs.

The stairs can take anywhere from 10-30 minutes on average to climb, but that will all depend on your own level of fitness.

This ticket does not grant you access to the top of the Eiffel Tower and you must also take the stairs back down.

There is no way to buy this ticket in advance unless you purchase a guided tour from a 3rd party .

This means you will have to wait in the ticket line when you arrive, but the stairs aren’t usually as popular an option as the elevator, and thus their ticket lines usually move very quickly. 

Check out our section about climbing the stairs for more details. 

Elevator Entrance (to 1st and 2nd Floors)

This ticket allows you to bypass the stairs and take the elevator from the ground floor to the 1st and 2nd floors.

This ticket also does not grant you access to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Order this ticket in advance (e-ticket) on their website so that you can skip the ticket queue, which can be very long. 

If priority e-tickets are sold out, consider going on a tour . Some of the companies that offer tours of the Eiffel Tower will include priority e-tickets for the elevator. 

Stairs Entrance (2nd Floor) w/ Elevator Entrance (Top)

This ticket option is the 3rd most expensive. With this ticket, you will have stairs access to the 1st and 2nd floors.

From there, you can queue up to take the elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

There is no way to buy this ticket in advance unless you purchase a guided tour from a 3rd party , and as we previously mentioned, the ticket line is usually very short compared to the elevator line. 

Elevator Entrance to the Top

This is the most expensive option. You get direct access to both elevators. You won’t need to take any stairs, up or down, with this option.

Order this ticket in advance so that you can skip the ticket queue. You will still need to wait in both elevator lines.

If priority e-tickets are sold out, consider going on a tour .

Some of the companies that offer tours of the Eiffel Tower will include priority e-tickets for the elevator to the 1st and 2nd floors. 

SOLD-OUT TICKETS AND GUIDED TOURS

Technically, Eiffel Tower tickets never sell out.

What actually gets sold out are the priority e-tickets for the elevators that one can purchase on the main website.

If those are sold out, you can still queue up for the elevator, but these lines can take over two hours in the high season.

If you don't want to use the stairs and there are no elevator tickets available during the time of your visit from the official ticket site, then you will need to consider using a 3rd party seller .

This will almost certainly mean higher prices but will mean you have a better chance of getting tickets.

However, with the higher prices come both priority e-tickets as well as on-site concierge services and guided tours.

Additionally, you can also add on a number of other amenities such as a dining experience, or have your visit to the Eiffel Tower combined with a number of other activities such as a river cruise for a lower rate.

Second Floor Priority E-ticket Elevator Access with a Guided Tour 

Meet your tour guide at the base of the Eiffel Tower and get priority access to the elevator plus a tour of the 2nd floor.

• Purchase tickets here .

Keep in mind that you can purchase Eiffel Tower summit tickets onsite, so there's no need to pre-book.

There is also an evening version .

Lots of private tour options come with mixed reviews, so this option is a stand-out ( read the reviews ).

Second Floor Stairs Access with a Guided Tour  (with optional summit access)

Rather than wait in long queues for the elevator, take the stairs and enjoy a guided tour to the 2nd floor.

• Purchase tickets here.

How do you skip the ticket line at the Eiffel Tower?

To skip the ticket line at the Eiffel Tower, you can:

• Purchase tickets in advance online.
• Opt for a skip-the-line ticket option.
• Consider booking a guided tour that includes priority access.
• Arrive early in the morning or late in the evening when there are fewer crowds.

How much does it cost to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower?

There are two ways to go the top of the Eiffel Tower. These are:

• Lift access to the top: €29.40
• Stairs access to the second floor, then lift to the top: €22.40

Shopping/Dining and Amenities

One of the easiest ways to get priority access to the Eiffel Tower is by reserving a table at one of the restaurants, Madame Brasserie on the first floor or Jules Verne on the second level.

Guests having a meal at one of these locations will be given access to a private lift which will take them to the floor in question.

Even if you don’t feel like going to a fancy restaurant, there are a few other places where you can grab a bite.

There are buffets located on the Esplanade and the 1st & 2nd floors. You will also find a macaroon bar on the second floor and a champagne bar at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

In addition to all of these dining options, there are also gift shops on the Esplanade and the 1st & 2nd floors.

There are restrooms with baby changing facilities on each floor of the tower – including the summit.

STAIRS VS. ELEVATOR

If you’re trying to decide whether to take the elevator or climb the stairs, there are a few things to consider.

Many visitors get frustrated by the amount of time it takes to wait for the elevator, particularly if a visitor doesn't have a reservation (a priority e-ticket).

Without a reservation, it can take an hour or more just to get in the lift from the ground and reach the 1st & 2nd floors – not to mention the 60-90 minute wait you can expect to get on the elevator to the top floor.

Unfortunately, tickets for stairs access are only available at the Eiffel Tower, so you won’t be able to purchase them in advance.

However, lines for stairs access are usually non-existent or very short, especially when compared to the ticket lines for the elevators.

You can also purchase tickets for some tours online which provide tickets for stairs access, allowing you to buy them in advance.

There are a total of 328 stairs to the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. To reach the second floor, you will need to climb another 341 steps.

In total, there are 669 steps to climb. For details on how high each floor is, make sure to read our levels explained section.

As you slowly head to the first and second floors of the Eiffel Tower, you’ll also have the opportunity to look around and see the city below at various heights. 

Some guests recommend taking the elevator up and walking back down the stairs for both experiences. 

THE LEVELS EXPLAINED

There are four levels to the Eiffel Tower and you will need to purchase tickets to reach at least three of them.

Here is a breakdown of what you can expect on each level.

The Esplanade (Ground Level)

This is where you will enter the Eiffel Tower. You can also purchase tickets here and there are buffets & gift shops in the area as well.

Make sure to stop by the bust of Gustave Eiffel before heading up the tower!

1st Floor (57m/187ft)

You will require tickets to get to this level and these tickets will also grant you access to the next level as well.

This section has a transparent floor that will allow you to look down and see everyone walking underneath.

There are also relaxation areas and exhibits at various locations on this floor.

2nd Floor (116m/380ft)  

Although there aren’t as many activities on this floor, you will have one of the greatest views of the city from this level.

There are telescopes at regular intervals to give you an even better look at Paris.

This is the last leg of the journey before heading to the top.

The Top (276m/905ft)

Also referred to as the summit, this is the highest point that anyone is allowed to visit on the Eiffel Tower. An additional ticket will be required to see this level.

There is a champagne bar, where you can enjoy a glass of champagne, and a fully restored representation of Gustave Eiffel’s office on this level.

You will find a few other exhibits on the top floor, but the main attraction is definitely the unforgettable view of Paris.

We have a post that explains in more detail how to get to the summit and if it's worth the effort and money.

Can you get tickets on the day of your visit to the Eiffel Tower?

It is possible to get tickets for the Eiffel Tower on the day of your visit through the on-site ticket office.

The ticket office is located at the base of the tower. However, please note that the availability of tickets on the day of your visit may vary depending on the time of year and the demand.

The ticket office at the Eiffel Tower typically opens at 9 am.

Is the Eiffel Tower better during the day or at night?

The Eiffel Tower offers different but equally captivating experiences during the day and at night.

During the day, you can enjoy panoramic views of Paris, including famous monuments, and appreciate the architectural details of the tower in natural light. It's a great time for taking clear photographs and observing the cityscape.

At night, the Eiffel Tower is illuminated with enchanting lights, creating a magical ambiance. It sparkles for a few minutes every hour, which adds to the romantic atmosphere. The view of Paris lit up at night from the tower can be quite stunning.

Where can you get Eiffel Tower tickets?

Eiffel Tower tickets can be obtained from various sources:

• Online: Tickets can be purchased directly from the official website of the Eiffel Tower or from third party resellers. Know more here .
• On-site ticket office: Ticket office is located at the base of Eiffel Tower where you can buy tickets in person.
• Tourist Passes: Another way is to buy tourist pass which include entry to the Eiffel Tower. Know more about such tourist passes here .

COMBINATION TICKETS & TOURIST PASSES

One of the best ways to save during your visit to Paris is to purchase packaged tours, which combine several different popular attractions for a reduced rate.

This also allows you to save time, as you will be able to skip the line at each of these places.

Some of our favorite combination tours include a cruise on the Seine, a visit to the Louvre, and a trip to Versailles, amongst many others!

The Paris Pass

This is one of the more popular tourist passes in Paris, and it's an all-inclusive pass.

That means you'll have access to every attraction and activity included on the pass for the entire length of the service.

You can purchase this pass for 2, 3, 4, or 6 days at a time. In addition to covering the cost of an Eiffel Tower visit, it also includes the following attractions:

• The Louvre Museum
• Palace of Versailles
• Picasso Museum
• Hop-on Hop-off Bus Tour
• Seine River Cruise
• Musée d'Orsay

Learn more about this option in our post covering Paris tourist passes .

Go City Paris Explorer Pass

If you'd rather not pay for a lot of different activities with one pass, this option allows you to select as few as two attractions from a list of dozens of popular things to see and do in Paris.

One of the most popular attractions included is the Eiffel Tower, but they also offer the following options:

• Aquarium de Paris
• Grevin Paris Wax Museum
• Parc Asterix

For more information about this service and how to use it, please read our post covering Paris tourist passes .

Paris City Card

The Eiffel Tower usually isn't included on any tourist passes, but this attraction was recently added to the new Paris City Card.

This is a prepackaged pass that covers the cost of several specific attractions. In a way, it's a lot like a combo package.

Here are the activities included with this pass:

• Eiffel Tower
• Louvre Museum
• Cruise on the Seine
• City Tour of Paris
• 10% off other attractions

At just €60, this is actually cheaper than most of the other combo tickets on our list, and it includes more things to see and do.

The addition of a 10% off promo credit allows you to save even more money on other activities in Paris, so if you're planning to visit sites like Versailles, Musée d'Orsay, and many other popular locations.

Purchase the Paris City Card or learn more .

Paris in a Day: Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, & Seine River Cruise

This full-day tour from the company Take Walks includes several different activities including skip-the-line access to the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre.

Guests can also expect a free cruise on the Seine River, as well as tours of Montmartre and the Latin Quarter.

Each location will be visited during the same 9-hour outing, and a tour guide will provide historic details and information at all of the landmarks included.

• €152/Adults | €143/Children
• Winter Availability: Fri-Mon, Wed at 9 am
• Summer Availability: Wed-Mon at 9 am
• Duration: 9 hours
• Includes admission to the Louvre.
• Includes admission to the Eiffel Tower.
• Includes Seine River Cruise.
• Purchase tickets or learn more .

This company typically receives excellent reviews and ratings, as customers report that their guides are both friendly and informative.

Guests indicate that this is a great way to see everything you'd want to see in Paris in just one day.

Two-in-One: Eiffel Tower and Seine Cruise 

A popular combination package that visitors opt for is the Two-in-One: Eiffel Tower and Seine Cruise.

A trip to the Eiffel Tower and a boat ride along the Seine are two of the most well-liked tourist activities in Paris.

By purchasing these as a package, you save money and hassle - especially because both tend to sell out months in advance during the high season!

Your visit to the Eiffel Tower includes priority e-tickets to the 2nd floor.

• From €40 per person

This combo package is one of the most popular and highly rated ones available.

People seem especially thankful that allowed them to see and do so many things in a short amount of time... and with just one purchase!

Guests also write repeatedly about the benefit of gaining skip-the-line access with a ticket like this.

Three-in-One: Eiffel Tower, Louvre, and Seine Cruise Tickets 

Similar to the ticket listed above, this Three-in-One offer gets you access to the Eiffel Tower, a Seine Cruise, and the Louvre.

You receive skip-the-line access to both the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, which are two of the most popular (and therefore crowded) attractions in the city.

Your Seine Cruise brings you along the river for an hour to enjoy the view from the water.

• From €139.90 per person

The Three-in-One combination package is even more popular than the Two-in-One!

Reviewers rave about the ease at which this ticket allowed them to participate in 3 of the most famous attractions in the city.

With skip-the-line access at each, you can save a lot of time and stress.

Skip-the-Line Eiffel Tower, Hop-on Hop-off Bus & Cruise  

If you're considering taking a bus tour around Paris, why not combine it with a river cruise and a visit to the Eiffel Tower?

Once again you'll have skip-the-line access to the 2nd floor of the latter.

Choose between either 1 or 2-day access to the hop-on-hop-off bus service.

Like most boat tours on the Seine, the cruise lasts approximately 1 hour.

• From €128.90 per person

Reviews: Most people seem very pleased with their decision to purchase this packaged deal.

Though there are a handful of reviews that are fairly critical of the hop-on, hop-off bus tour service (largely due to heavy traffic).

However, others acknowledge that, though they were concerned because of other reviews that they had read, they were pleasantly surprised by the high quality of each of the activities.

Skip-the-Line: Eiffel Tower & Arc de Triomphe

This combination package includes admission to the 2nd floor of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.

Transportation is not included, but admission to each location is covered, including the Museum of the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower's Summit.

• From €52.20 per person

Reviews: Most people seem very happy with this package, as it allowed them to visit 3 of the biggest attractions in France in just one day.

***These are just a few of our favorite combo tour packages.***

Click here to see all the other combinations also available!  

Even though we do our best to provide all the information you'll need to visit the Eiffel Tower, there's always a chance we might have missed something that was important to your travel plans.

That's why we have a Facebook Group called Paris Travel Tips where you can ask locals and travelers about their experience at this historic attraction.

In addition to our own group, there are also Facebook Groups such as Paris Travel Tips and Plans where you can ask any question you might have about visiting the Eiffel Tower.

If you're struggling to decide whether or not to get tickets to the summit, you should know that most travelers insist that summit tickets are worth the price.

Even so, some visitors like Veronique swear by other attractions in Paris for excellent views of the city.

For those wondering if they should pre-book their tickets or trying to figure out how long the wait should be, it's important to keep in mind that the wait can be as long as an hour or more.

Some even recommend taking the stairs instead because it can actually be faster than waiting for the lift. This won't be possible for everyone, but if you can make it up the stairs, it's definitely a good way to avoid a potentially long wait.

If you're looking for even more helpful advice or suggestions about the Eiffel Tower, please consider visiting our Paris Travel Tips group on Facebook and asking whatever question you have.

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• Eiffel Tower Tickets

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Eiffel Tower Tickets:  8 Easy Ways to Get Them & Avoid Long Lines

The Eiffel Tower - Le Tour Eiffel  - symbolizes the city of Paris to the world.  The 7+ million visitors who visit each year prove its enduring popularity!

If you are planning to be among them during your trip to Paris, you've probably heard horror stories about long waits in the ticket lines - up to 4 hours and even longer  during the busiest (and often the hottest) times.

Unfortunately, these stories are true. 

Especially if you visit during the summer or on a sunny weekend without a reservation that lets you skip the ticket line, you'll swear at least half of those 7 million visitors are waiting to buy tickets on the same day you are.  

Book Your Eiffel Tower Tickets Now: Our Top Picks

• Eiffel Tower Entry TIcket with Optional Summit Access - Skip the ticket line
• Eiffel Tower Stairs Tickets - Skip the ticket line and the elevator lines (unless you select the option to take the elevator to the Summit at the top
• Madame Brasserie - Enjoy a wonderful lunch or dinner while enjoying views of the Paris skyline from the 1st Level

But don't worry - this is where our list of eight easy ways to see the Eiffel Tower comes in. 

Once you know all the ways to avoid waiting in line for tickets , you can choose the best strategy for your visit, and spend your time enjoying the views as you create priceless memories. 

Because after all, there's nothing else quite like the thrill of experiencing the Eiffel Tower!

Book your Eiffel Tower tickets now:

Top photo: The Eiffel Tower, seen from Trocadero Gardens, (c) Paris Discovery Guide

Paris Discovery Guide is a reader-supported publication.  When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission at no additional cost for you.  Learn more

Eiffel Tower Ticket Requirements:  A Quick Overview

Let's start with a quick refresher of what you can experience inside the Eiffel Tower, how to get to each of the three floors above ground level, and available ticket types.

As you may already know, the Eiffel Tower offers visits to three platforms, or floors, above ground level for you to visit.  Each level about the ground offers unique amenities and of course, its spectacular 360 degree views of Paris - and beyond, if you go up to the Summit level on top.

You can reach the 1st and 2nd Levels by either stairs or elevators.  Going up, elevators stop only at the 2nd Level, but do stop at the 1st Level on the way down.  You must have a ticket to access the 1st and 2nd Levels.  Several types of tickets are offered, based on whether you want to take the elevator and/or stairs. 

You can go up to the Summit (3rd and highest) Level by elevator only - but because it is a separate elevator from those going from the Ground Level to the 2nd Level, you always have to change elevators and must have a separate ticket  if you plan to go to the Summit.

If you visited in the past, you may remember how you could buy Eiffel Tower Summit tickets from yellow ticket machines on the 2nd Level - but they have been removed. 

Now, if you want to visit the 3rd Level , you must purchase a Summit ticket in advance.

You can also choose to join a guided tour to the 2nd Level (which also allows you to visit the 1st Level) or to the Summit (which includes access to the 1st and 2nd Levels. 

If you want to go only to the 1st Level, you can get priority entry to that platform by making a reservation at the Madame Brasserie restaurant or by getting tickets to one of the relatively rare Eiffel Tower concerts (more about that in a moment).

Popular Eiffel Tower Experiences:

Eiffel ticket types.

You must have Eiffel Tower reservations such as a ticket (or a tour voucher, or Eiffel Tower restaurant reservation confirmation or concert ticket) to enter the Eiffel Tower.

Four basic types of tickets are available (in addition to 1st Level-only access provided by restaurant reservations or concert tickets) based on which floors you want to explore, and whether you want to ride or climb. 

Here are your ticket choices to access Levels 2 and 3:

1.  Ticket to 2nd Level by elevator (elevator stops at the 1st Level on the way down)

2.  Ticket to the 3rd Level, the Summit (Top) by elevator (elevator goes to the 2nd Level; you change to another elevator to go to the top ; on the way down, you get off the elevator on the 2nd Level and change to another that also stops at the 1st Level on the way down)

3.  Ticket to the 1st and 2nd Level by stairs

4.  Ticket to the 1st and 2nd Levels by stairs, and to the Summit (Top) Level by elevator; coming down, you get off the elevator at Level 2 and take the stairs down to the Ground Level (and no, you can't sneak onto the other elevator).

So how do our 8 easy ways to avoid the Eiffel Tower ticket lines help you?  Well, they all let you get your ticket without standing in long lines. 

We'll show you the pros and cons of each option - including a couple of lesser-known ways to experience the Eiffel Tower without regular tickets. 

Option 1:  Buy Your Eiffel Tower Entrance Tickets in Advance

You can choose from 2 ways to buy your tickets in advance online:

Buy Your Tickets on the Eiffel Tower Website

Go to the Eiffel Tower's website and make your Eiffel Tower reservations by buying your tickets online for a specific date and time, and print it on your home printer. 

You'll pay the same price as you would at the Eiffel Tower's ticket window. 

When you arrive at the Eiffel Tower, you skip the ticket line, although you'll still need to go through a couple of security checks and perhaps wait for the elevator to the 2nd Level. 

Sounds good, right?  It is - but be aware of these 3 "catches":

Catch #1:  Only a limited number of tickets are offered online.  They become available 60 days in advance for elevator access and usually sell out almost immediately during peak seasons. 

Tickets to access Level 2 by stairs go on sale 14 days in advance.  So to get the best (or any) date/time reservation choice, you need to start looking for tickets as soon as they are available. 

If you can't get them for the date/time you want, sometimes a few become available later (typically about 1 week before the visit date) - but they also sell out very quickly.

Catch #2:  These tickets are non-refundable and cannot be exchanged for another date or time slot. 

Even worse, you may have to forfeit your tickets for reasons beyond your control such as bad weather which delays your arrival, illness, delayed flights, or a transportation strike. 

Likewise, you forfeit the cost of your tickets if you arrive more than half an hour late for your time slot due to an unexpected delay on the metro, an extra-long time spent getting through the security check line before you reach the entrance line (which you could rightfully claim is not your fault), or any other delay beyond your control.

That means you usually lose the opportunity to go up inside the tower, since unless you want to chance standing in the very long line to buy another ticket in case a few may still be available, which is highly unlikely during the busiest seasons.

Catch #3:  The Summit occasionally closes due to strong winds or other dicy weather conditions.  Less frequently, the entire Eiffel Tower closes due to labor strikes or security precautions.  Occasionally, a celebrity will buy out the whole place and host a wedding or some other event there. 

If you have already purchased tickets, getting a refund can be hit or miss.   (Although in fairness, the Eiffel Tower now issues refunds more reliably than they used to.)

Buy "Skip-the-Line" Eiffel Tower Tickets through a Tour Company

Tour companies are much more likely to have skip-the-line Tour Eiffel reservation tickets available until almost the last moment, long after the last time slots get snapped up on the Eiffel Tower's website.  (That's because they're able to buy them in bulk in advance.  Is that fair?  Probably not - but that's the reality.)  They also come with a couple of perks that speed up your entry.

Do "skip-the-line" tickets really let you skip the long lines? 

Yes... and no.   You do get to skip the very long lines of people waiting to buy tickets on site.  You do NOT get to skip the security lines, but those lines are much shorter and typically move more quickly. 

And, you get two "bonuses."  You usually get to go through a faster "groups only" security line and up on a tour groups-only elevator with a shorter waiting line - so while you don't skip these lines entirely, you do avoid the longer lines.

Skip-the-line tickets bought through tour companies typically include the services of a "host" or "greeter" who will escort you and your group through the "groups" security line, which is almost always faster than the non-group entry. 

A host or greeter does not actually provide a tour, but will expedite your entry.  A tour guide does give you interesting information about the Tower, and depending on the tour, may take you to see areas you can't access on your own.

You can choose skip-the-line tickets to the 2nd Level or 2nd Level plus Summit - just like the options offered on the Eiffel Tower's website.  

Tour companies also offer stairs-only tickets.   You can usually select a "Summit" option, which means that after you've climbed the 704 steps to the Tower's 2nd floor, you will take an elevator to the top.  Or, alternately, once you've enjoyed the second floor views, you can take the elevator down to the first floor. 

Some skip-the-line tickets through a tour company may even be refundable up until 24 hours before your visit (read the details very carefully when booking to make sure). 

Tickets booked through tour companies typically cost more. However, because you usually can buy them much closer to your preferred date and you may be able to cancel or change them if your plans change (or if you want to avoid a rainy day), you have a much better chance of getting tickets for the date/time you want, and you reduce the risk of not being able to use them. 

And because the tour host or greeter can usually take you through a tours-only security line and up a tours-only elevator, they usually speed up your entry time - important if you are on a tight schedule and want to squeeze in as many Paris experiences as possible.  You are literally buying yourself some time.

Get your tickets now

Option 2:  Tour the Eiffel Tower with a Guided Tour

For the fastest and most stress-free access to the Eiffel Tower as well as an enjoyable and informative experience, book a tour with a guide. 

Your guide will make the Eiffel Tower reservations and will bring you (and a small group of usually 10-20 others) to the site, expedite your entrance through a special (and faster) security check, accompany you onto (usually) the groups-only elevator up to the 2nd Level, and give you lots of interesting information about the Eiffel Tower. 

If your chosen tour includes the Summit, you'll either do it on your own or accompanied by your guide, depending on your particular tour.

Here are two of the most popular guided Eiffel Tower tours:

• Eiffel Tower Summit or Second Floor Access
• Eiffel Tower Guided Tour by Elevator (recent reviewers love its family-friendly guides)

More Eiffel Tower Skip-the-Line Experiences

Option 3:  make lunch or dinner reservations at an eiffel tower restaurant.

You can choose from two enticing restaurants within the Eiffel Tower where you'll enjoy wonderful skyline views of Paris while you enjoy your meal:

• Jules Verne - Located on the Tower's second level above the ground, the Michelin-starred Jules Verne offers unforgettable contemporary gastronomic cuisine and sweeping city views and expedited entry through special Ground Level entrances and private elevators (once you pass through the security check); reservations required
• Madame Brasserie - On the Tower's first level above the ground, Madame Brasserie offers wonderful views and several appealing lunch and dinner options for enjoying the contemporary cuisine overseen by Michelin-starred chef Thierry Marx; reservations required

These reservations give you restaurant access only; if you want to spend time exploring the Eiffel Tower beyond the restaurant, you'll need to get admission tickets.  

In case you've heard or read that in the past, restaurant reservations would get you into the rest of the Eiffel Tower, that was indeed true... but that's now in the past.  Today, that perk is no longer possible due to security barriers.

Are Jules Verne and Madame Brasserie expensive restaurants?  Yes - but you get a wonderful experience.  In addition to a delicious meal, you also get priceless city skyline views from an iconic Paris location - without the crowds elsewhere on the Tower.

Make reservations  

Does the Eiffel Tower have other  less-expensive places to eat? 

Yes - although you'll need to enter the Tower with a regular admission ticket or group. 

Snack bars on the ground, first, and 2nd (in the U.S. and Canada, that would be first, second, and third, or summit) levels provide a variety of affordable although still somewhat pricey casual choices.  On the 2nd floor, you can also stop by the tempting Pierre Hermé macaron bar. 

And don't forget the Champagne Bar on the Eiffel Tower's top level - the perfect spot to toast the City of Light.

Option 4:  Get Eiffel Tower Skip-the-Line Tickets in Combo with the Moulin Rouge, Louvre Museum, or Seine River Cruise

If you want to combine an Eiffel Tower visit with sightseeing to other top Paris attractions, look for a combination tour package to make the most of your time.   You'll find a variety of options with skip-the-line tickets, so pick the one you like the best.  

These combos can also be a good strategy when other Eiffel Tower ticket options are sold out but since they can also save you a few (or more) euros, they're also a good deal.

Here are 3 of the most popular tour combinations:

• Eiffel Tower Guided Tour & Seine River Cruise  - Save time by accessing the Eiffel Tower (all 3 levels, or just the first two, depending on the option you choose) with a guide, and then see Paris's top attractions during a day or evening Seine River cruise
• Eiffel Tower, Hop-On Hop-Off Bus, Seine River Cruise - Perfect way to see top Paris attractions in less than a day!
• Eiffel Tower Summit, Louvre Museum, and Seine River Cruise - Enjoy the views from the Eiffel Tower's Summit (plus Levels 1 & 2), explore the Louvre Museum at your own pace, and then enjoy a relaxing Seine River cruise

Option 5:  Stand in Line to Get Your Tickets

Standing in line to buy Eiffel Tower admission tickets is sometimes a feasible option - but ONLY if there are no crowds or you have the time and patience to spend in line for hours. 

Those "only if" conditions generally rules out summer , weekends as well as many week days in other months popular with tourists such as April, May, September, and October, French and other European school holiday weeks, and periods around major events attracting visitors such as the Paris Marathon

Avoid the wait - get skip-the-line tickets

So what does that leave?   

  - Bright, sunny (although chilly) days in March and November when the sky is crystal-clear.  

  -  Those special winter days in January or February when gently falling snowflakes transform the city (but don't accumulate enough for the Tower's 3rd level to close).     

  -  December evenings when you want an aerial view of the sparkling holiday lights twinkling across the city - except from about mid-December through New Year's Day, when everyone else has the same idea.

In fairness, at many times of the year, you can occasionally find shorter lines, especially late at night close to closing time - but you can't count on it, even on those chilly, rainy Paris evenings when you might think no one else other than you would be crazy enough to be there (but they are!). 

If you're visiting Paris for a short time and don't want to risk the hassle and stress of standing in line for hours, you're far better off getting skip-the-line tickets in advance.  Think of it as insurance against wasting hours of your precious time in Paris.

Update:  Please be aware that the Eiffel Tower urges visitors to get their tickets for a specified date and timeslot in advance.

Option 6:  Buy Walk-Up Stairs-Only Eiffel Tower Tickets - Bonus:  Great Exercise & Usually No Ticket Line!

If you want Stairs-Only tickets to the 2nd Level, you used to have to buy them onsite or through a tour operator because they weren't offered on the Eiffel Tour's website. 

The good news:  1) now, sometimes you can buy them online (but sometimes not, depending on your date), and 2) but if you do decide to buy onsite, there is often a dedicated line for Stairs-only tickets and it usually moves quickly - so this is the one time (other than winter months) when buying your tickets onsite makes sense.

Don't forget, though, you can usually get stairs-only tickets online through a tour company even if the Eiffel Tower's website is sold out, or if you want the options of taking the elevator to the Summit level at the top.

Assuming you're reasonably fit  and don't mind heights, climbing the stairs is a fabulous experience because of the wonderful perspectives of Paris as well as close-up views of Eiffel Tower mechanics. 

Stair tickets are a particularly popular choice of families visiting with kids (beyond the toddler stage) and teens since the climb burns up a lot of excess energy.

Pro Tip:  If heights and/or tilted perspectives make you feel queasy, do yourself a huge favor and go up by elevator, and maybe also consider skipping the Summit.

Option 7:  Get Tickets for an Eiffel Tower Concert

We almost hesitate to include this option because only a few concerts take place at the Eiffel Tower each year. 

But if you happen to be in Paris at a time when one is scheduled (usually around Christmas or New Year's Day, but also random times as well), don't miss the chance to combine beautiful music with sweeping views of Paris from the 1st Level for an unforgettable evening.  Check our Paris concert schedule by month for the period when you'll be here to see if any are listed.

Concerts take place in the Gustave Eiffel Salon, located on the 1st Level platform inside the tower.  The Salon has floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides and offers fantastic views. 

You can usually order Champagne when you book your ticket, and sip it before the concert begins while you enjoy the Paris skyline views.  The Champagne comes in a cute plastic flute, which you can keep as a souvenir if you want.

A quartet or quintet of professional musicians perform the concerts, which usually last about an hour plus another 5-6 minutes for an encore if everyone claps long enough at the end.

The tower lights up once the sky turns dark, so depending on the time of the year, you may experience the tower sparkling around you. 

After the concert ends, you can walk around the 1st Level for as long as you wish and take advantage of all the things to do: enjoy the panoramic views, stop by the Champagne Bar for another glass of bubbly, get something to eat at the snack bar, or peer straight down at the ground through one of the glass floor areas.

Although the Eiffel Tower's concert schedule is mostly unpredictable, several concerts almost always take place in November, December, and January, especially around the holidays, plus a few will also occur during other months.  

To find Eiffel Tower concerts, check our Paris concert schedule  which lists what's on each month.  They always sell out, sometimes faster than you might expect - so if you don't see any concerts listed for the Eiffel Tower, they've already sold out or haven't yet been announced.

Option 8:  See the Eiffel Tower Without Eiffel Tower Tickets

This is the easiest of all our 8 Eiffel Ticket ticket options - avoid the need for a ticket altogether.

If you're in Paris for just a short time and want to see the famous "Iron Lady" but not tour it - or maybe you don't like heights - you'll have plenty of opportunities to get wonderful ground-level (or Seine River-level, if you take a cruise) views of the famous Paris attraction. 

Here are just a few of the many excellent Eiffel Tower viewing locations around the city:

• Trocadero, directly across the Seine River from the Eiffel Tower - head to the marble viewing platform by the Musée de l'Homme (Anthropology Museum) at Palais de Chaillot, or walk around the gardens until you find the perfect spot
• Hop On / Hop Off Bus Tours - You'll get plenty of great views from the top of these fun open top double-decker buses - plus the drivers usually pause in the best spots for taking photos - Get your tickets
• Montparnasse Tower - Go to the Observation Tower and Rooftop Terrace (get your tickets) or even better, enjoy the panoramic views during a delicious meal at the gourmet restaurant Le Ciel de Paris on the Tower's 56th floor
• Top of the Arc de Triomphe - Get skip the line Arc de Triomphe rooftop tickets in advance                     
• Place de la Concorde - Almost anywhere around the plaza - or walk over to the adjacent bridge across the Seine for even more spectacular views
• Segway Tour with Eiffel Tower Views - Combine fun with great views!
• Seine River cruises with Eiffel Tower Views:

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The 25 Most Defining Pieces of Furniture From the Last 100 Years

Three designers, a museum curator, an artist and a design-savvy actress convened at The New York Times to make a list of the most enduring and significant objects for living.

Credit... Clockwise, from top left: Valentin Jeck; courtesy of Bukowskis; courtesy of Zanotta SpA - Italy; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh/Art Resource, NY © ARS, NY; Ellen McDermott © Smithsonian Institution; Herman Miller Archives; Vitra

Supported by

By Nick Haramis ,  Max Berlinger ,  Rose Courteau ,  Kate Guadagnino ,  Max Lakin and Evan Moffitt

• March 28, 2024

How do we define furniture? It might seem like a silly question, but it’s one that kept coming up in October of last year, when, in a conference room on the 15th floor of The New York Times building, six experts — the architects and interior designers Rafael de Cárdenas and Daniel Romualdez ; the Museum of Modern Art’s senior curator of architecture and design, Paola Antonelli ; the actress and avid furniture collector Julianne Moore ; the artist and sculptor Katie Stout ; and T’s design and interiors director, Tom Delavan — gathered for nearly three hours to make a list of the most influential chairs, sofas and tables, as well as some less obvious household objects, from the past century.

The goal was to land on a wide range of offerings, but there were parameters: To qualify, each piece was required to have been fabricated, even if just as a prototype, within the past 100 years. It also needed to be at least slightly functional. (The Japanese architect Oki Sato’s 2007 Cabbage chair , a treatise on sustainability constructed entirely from a roll of disused paper, isn’t the sturdiest place to sit; nonetheless, it was nominated.) Lighting was excluded from the debate — “which is nuts,” said de Cárdenas, a former men’s wear designer who started his firm in 2006 — unless it was attached to, say, a desk. (The Italian architect and designer Ettore Sottsass’s illuminated Ultrafragola mirror, which presaged selfie culture by decades, made the cut.) There were no limits placed on provenance, and a piece didn’t need to have been designed by a known name, or even attributable. The jurors were determined to avoid what Antonelli described as “the usual collectors’ items by white German, French and Italian males with a smattering of women, no Latin American or Black — and very little Asian — representation.” While the final list, presented below in roughly the order it was discussed, and not reflecting any kind of hierarchy, does include an icon or two (to omit Charles and Ray Eames or Le Corbusier, the group decided, would be a mistake), diversity of maker (and of materials, styles, processes and prices) was a consideration. In each case, the objects represented more than comfort or utility; every innovation is, in its own way, a historical artifact — a response to the prosperity or unrest into which it was born or a proposal for a more efficient world, maybe a better one.

The participants were asked to submit a list of 10 suggestions beforehand , revealing their own unique tastes and interests. Stout, who curated a show in 2020 with the Shaker Museum in Chatham, N.Y., argued that a bonnet is a slipcover for the head and should count as furniture. (She was voted down.) Moore, an avowed minimalist, petitioned to include austere creations in marble or wood by Poul Kjaerholm and Donald Judd. Romualdez’s more classical choices — among them a daybed by the mid-20th-century French designer Marc du Plantier and a patinated bronze table by the Swiss sculptor Diego Giacometti from the 1980s — were influenced by the luxurious interiors he saw in American magazines while growing up in Manila in the Philippines, long before he’d work for the architects Thierry Despont and Robert A.M. Stern and later open a firm of his own. As Delavan said, “Daniel’s were the chicest. Julianne’s were the purest. Katie’s were the wackiest. Rafael’s were the campiest. And mine were the dullest.” Antonelli’s were, perhaps, the most comprehensive: She created three separate lists to accommodate her top picks, runners-up and wild cards. “I just want us to express an idea of design that excites the world,” she said. As the members of the group settled into the room’s upholstered cantilever chairs — imitations of a Bauhaus style popularized in the 1920s by the Hungarian German Modernist Marcel Breuer — they nodded and offered words of encouragement. And then they got down to business. — Nick Haramis

This conversation has been edited and condensed.

1. Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini and Franco Teodoro, Sacco Chair, 1968

Considered the original beanbag, the Sacco chair is the rare design object to become an instant classic in both rec rooms and museum collections. It was included in MoMA’s seminal 1972 show “ Italy: The New Domestic Landscape ,” which presented furnishings that looked beyond aesthetics and function toward sociocultural shifts, including the rejection of bourgeois propriety. “Imagine trying to be stuffy while slouching in a beanbag chair,” said the show’s curator, the architect and industrial designer Emilio Ambasz. Indeed, the vaguely pear-shaped blob of stitched vinyl filled with polystyrene beads — the transparent prototype was partially inspired by piles of snow — molded to the body of the sitter and encouraged lounging of the highest order; the hard part was getting out of it. Now that we better understand the environmental impact of polystyrene, the Italian furniture company Zanotta, which has produced the piece from the start and continues to call it the “anatomical easy-chair,” has experimented with a version stuffed with bioplastic derived from sugar cane. — Kate Guadagnino

Tom Delavan: It was revolutionary in terms of material, and it really did filter down to so many imitations that are less expensive. It also addressed how people’s lives were changing: We’re slouching lower and lower as time goes by.

Paola Antonelli: I used to say it was like the Kama Sutra: It has tons of positions. And it was a symbol of an era. I remember pictures of bearded revolutionaries smoking their joints on it. It was all about huddling together and rethinking the world, and it’s still as fresh as ever. I love the fact that you can find it in different shapes. My only big concern about that chair is sustainability. But there’re so many other fillers beside polystyrene, right? I think you can use mushroom mycelium.

Katie Stout: I wish we were all lounging on beanbags right now.

2. Le Corbusier, LC14 Tabouret Cabanon, 1952

Some of the best design originates at home. A great example is the LC14 Tabouret Cabanon, which the Swiss-born French architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, built for his cabin in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, a vacation shack that he designed (reportedly in 45 minutes) on the French Riviera. At roughly 160 square feet, the residence was almost monastic, with most of the furniture built in. An exercise in pure functionality, the boxes can be used as chairs, side tables and storage. Made of wood — the Cabanon is chestnut, though other iterations come in oak — they were inspired by a whiskey crate the architect found on the beach, with dovetail joints and oblong holes in the sides for lifting. Prefiguring both modular furniture and the nothing-to-hide sensibility of industrial décor, they serve as rustic altars to the right angle, about which Le Corbusier once wrote, “Simple and naked / yet knowable. … It is the answer and the guide.” — Rose Courteau

Julianne Moore: In my business, this is what we call an apple box. I stand on one if I’m shorter than the actor I’m working with. Le Corbusier created an object of desirability, but it’s something you could make yourself and use a million different ways. [The English furniture designer] Jasper Morrison did his own version. I have two in my house that were built by a grip to hold a certain kind of camera. A painter once said to me, “They’re sort of amazing. They look like a [Constantin] Brâncuși [sculpture].” It’s a simple object that reminds different people of different things. And while it’s sort of silly that the Corbusier version has become this untouchable museum piece, I like the fact that it’s just a box.

Delavan: I’m going to argue against it. You can’t say that Le Corbusier invented the box. My feeling is that he was basically reusing a thing that already existed.

Rafael de Cárdenas: I’m not defending it, but he did recontextualize it.

Antonelli: Even though I’ve never been a fan of this, I buy your argument. I had [the Italian architect and designer Achille] Castiglioni as a teacher. And he used to always say that redesign is a legitimate form of design — to take something that exists in the world and appropriate it and improve upon it.

3. Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand; Chaise Longue à Réglage Continu; 1928

In 1929, Le Corbusier , along with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret and their colleague and fellow architect and designer Charlotte Perriand , created a Modernist interior for the Salon d’Automne art exhibition in Paris. In a sly rejection of the enameled embellishments of Art Deco, the prevailing style of the time, they presented concealed lights, glass-topped tables, mirrored cabinets and seating featuring tubular steel, including the lissome Chaise Longue à Réglage Continu, which they’d first produced and placed the previous year in a villa just outside of Paris. With an H-shaped, bicolor-steel base cradling chromed tubes that followed the form of a supine human body — dipping to accommodate the hips and cresting to support the knees — it was among the first ergonomically conscious pieces of furniture ever manufactured. The frame, which could be adjusted to change the angle of repose, held a slim, black fur mattress with a cylindrical headrest. Far too radical for its time and expensive to fabricate, the piece languished for decades but emerged as a coveted emblem of Modernism when Cassina started producing it in 1965. Le Corbusier, who held functionality in high esteem, is famous for saying that a house is a machine for living. It’s no surprise, then, that he considered this chaise longue a machine for resting. His biographer Charles Jencks had another take: “It is as if the body is being propped up on fingertips like a precious jewel.” — K.G.

Delavan: I love this chair because, even though it looks weird, it addresses how our bodies are meant to sit. It’s ergonomic in a way that chairs or sofas weren’t before. Every zero-gravity chair is a version of this.

Antonelli: Interestingly, for a piece of modern furniture, it’s also comfortable.

Moore: And it references what was going on in the world at the time: industrialism and metal suddenly entering our lives and our homes.

Delavan: Think of how crazy this must have seemed in 1928.

Moore: When so many people were still living with traditional furniture.

Antonelli: If we’re to include a tubular steel chair, this is the one.

4. George Nakashima, Slab I Coffee Table, Circa 1950

These days, live-edge furniture — fashioned from a slice of a log with at least one side left ruggedly intact — seems to be everywhere. Each piece owes a debt to the raw splendor of George Nakashima’s original slab coffee tables. Nakashima, who was born in Spokane, Wash., to Japanese immigrant parents, established himself as a furniture designer before being imprisoned with his family at the Minidoka internment camp in Idaho during World War II. While there, he further refined his woodworking skills under the tutelage of a fellow internee, the master carpenter Gentaro Kenneth Hikogawa. After Nakashima’s release in 1943, he settled in New Hope, Pa., where he established his own studio and made furniture for Knoll. Believing that his work gave trees a second life, he fused the austere solidity of Shaker furniture with the Japanese concepts of wabi, sabi and shibui — emphasizing age and simplicity. This bundle of ideals was best expressed in the Slab table, with a top made from a single slice of American black walnut or cherry, occasionally accented with functional elements like a stabilizing butterfly joint. Instead of excising the irregularities and imperfections, Nakashima chose to highlight them, a radical approach at the time. Each table was unique to the tree and the woodworker who handled it. The furniture designer enshrined sensitivity, not domination, as the key to sublime design, in contrast to the ornate embellishments of Art Deco and the factory aesthetics of the postwar era, which embraced machinery as a human triumph. — R.C.

Moore: I’m obsessed with craft, and I think that Nakashima was the first person who brought it into mainstream conversation. I think about what he went through, how he emerged from the internment camp and returned to making his furniture. You could go to New Hope and say, “I want a table, some chairs and a bed,” and he would do it. He was expressing himself as an artist and introducing this idea of organic Modernism.

Delavan: This table inspired a lot of craftspeople to be like, “I can make one, too.”

De Cárdenas: There’re also kitsch versions of it. So much defining furniture is high culture, but this had mass appeal.

Antonelli: I like that it inspired people to make their own little monsters.

5. Bill Stumpf, Ergon Chair, 1976

The ancient Greeks made chairs with curved backrests, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that ergonomics, the study of people in their workplace undertaken to improve efficiency and welfare, was heartily embraced by industrial designers. That’s when Herman Miller brought on the American designer Bill Stumpf , who’d worked with medical experts while doing his postgraduate study at the University of Wisconsin to conduct studies on ideal sitting posture that incorporated X-rays and time-lapse photography. In 1976, the year that word processing became available on microcomputers, Stumpf came up with the swiveling Ergon office chair, constructed with pillowy pieces of fabric-covered foam (one for the back and another for the bottom), which could be wheeled in any direction. The chair also had gas-lift levers that controlled height and tilt — good news for women, who were joining the work force in record numbers, and whose comfort had been ignored by earlier designers. But Stumpf didn’t stop there; in collaboration with the Los Angeles-born Don Chadwick, he went on to debut 1994’s Aeron chair, which featured a higher backrest covered in a flexible textile called pellicle. It remains, with a tweak or two, one of those pieces that’s so ubiquitous you’re not likely to notice or think about it. That is, until a co-worker nabs yours. — K.G.

Delavan: It’s one of the earliest examples of an adjustable office chair. Part of it was that women were now in the workplace, so they needed the chair to be a different size. Paola, you’d nominated the Aeron chair, which is great, but I feel like Stumpf’s idea started here. The Aeron is a refinement of the Ergon.

Antonelli: I saw the Aeron chair being made when I was living in Los Angeles, and I remember it in the World Trade Center lobbies. It’s the first thing I acquired for the Museum of Modern Art when I started working there. But I prefer this one because it’s earlier. There was the Ettore Sottsass chair for Olivetti — the yellow one [from 1972] — but I don’t care, because this one was probably more affordable, and it went everywhere.

6. Gae Aulenti, Table With Wheels, 1980

The “High Tech” moment in design started in the early 1970s, as more and more New York City artists were moving into lofts in SoHo’s abandoned cast-iron buildings and furnishing them with functional pieces picked up at hospitals, offices, warehouses and restaurant supply stores. In these open-plan homes and those that aspired to be like them, you were likely to find white walls, exposed pipes, track lighting, Metro Super Erecta wire shelving and stainless-steel commercial refrigerators. In 1980, at the tail-end of that era, the Italian architect and designer Gae Aulenti introduced Table With Wheels, a thick pane of beveled glass mounted on large rubber casters that she intended to resemble the wooden trolleys used to cart heavy pieces around the factory of Milan’s FontanaArte design studio, where she served as art director. The table had the playfulness and poeticism of a Marcel Duchamp readymade, and it presaged glass as one of the decade’s trendy materials for interiors — one seen increasingly throughout the 1980s in the form of smooth reflective surfaces and chunky, semitransparent blocks. In 1993, Aulenti riffed on her design, releasing Tour, an updated model with bicycle wheels. — K.G.

De Cárdenas: I know it’s just a piece of glass on casters, but I think it transcends class, style and era.

Moore: You know what else it speaks to? High-tech design.

Daniel Romualdez: If we’re doing high tech, I think we should include the Metro shelves.

Moore: No! That then knocks out Dieter Rams.

7. Dieter Rams, 606 Universal Shelving System, 1960

The German functionalist Dieter Rams didn’t invent modular design, but as the creator of the 606 Universal Shelving System for Vitsoe, he can be credited as one of its early perfecters. The system’s construction is strikingly simple, with aluminum E-Tracks mounted to walls from which shelves, cabinets and even tables can be hung using no-equipment-required pins. Adjustable and customizable, it can be adapted to a wide range of spaces, needs and aesthetics. (When they’re full, the wafer-thin but deceptively strong shelves, made of powder-coated, laser-cut steel, nearly disappear.) The unit embodies all 10 of the design principles that Rams, an early advocate of environmental sustainability, formulated in the 1970s (No. 1: “Good design is innovative”; No. 5: “Good design is unobtrusive”), but the real reason it’s been revered for decades may be its incomparable durability (No. 7: “Good design is long-lasting”). Parts purchased today can be used interchangeably with those from 1960, when the shelving first went into production. — R.C.

Moore: I’m going to go to bat for Dieter Rams. I’m a big fan of the idea of a system, particularly in terms of the 20th century and how we started to live [in a more transient way], which led to things that collapse or stack and are lightweight. The idea is that you can buy this piece and change it — use it for books, records or clothing. I’m really interested in industrial design, a lot of which we don’t even think of as being designed. It often seems to have come out of nowhere, and I feel that way about this shelving.

Antonelli: If we’re going to include a shelving system, much as I love Metro’s [steel storage] shelves, Dieter Rams should be on here.

Moore: He’s a rock star.

Stout: Even just this image [from the Vitsoe catalog], with a game of Twister stored on a shelf, feels so democratic to me. All these different tiers of design.

Moore: I love the Vitsoe catalog, frankly. It’s very soothing.

8. Faye Toogood, Roly-Poly Chair, 2014

Faye Toogood’s Roly-Poly chair, which debuted in 2014 as part of a collection of similarly rotund fiberglass furniture titled Assemblage 4, isn’t just a seminal piece of design — it’s also got a sense of humor. The key lies in the contrast between its jolly, potbellied seat, evocative of a cartoon animal, with four squat, cylindrical legs, and the confident way it occupies space. The chair is a corporeal symbol of maternal strength; Toogood, a multi-hyphenate British clothing and interior designer, has said that the roundness was inspired by her pregnancy. (“I’ve got fat,” she told an architecture magazine upon the chair’s release.) Indeed, it’s the kind of perch that makes you never want to get up, to relinquish your vanity and drop into a state of permanent comfort. With no hard edges, it’s both cleverly child-safe and endlessly imaginative, conjuring bubble letters, elephants and balloons. But although the Roly-Poly grew out of the designer’s experience with her changing body, it offers something more universal: a softer, more whimsical take on minimalism, which in recent years has turned away from sharp-cornered austerity toward the more organic silhouettes of the circle and the arch. — R.C.

Moore: Faye was at the forefront of a movement where things suddenly got soft.

Antonelli: And big .

Delavan: She changed the silhouette.

De Cárdenas: I remember her presentation in Milan in 2011. There were these black hard-boiled eggs, and cheese served on pieces of charcoal. I mean, it sucked scraping your teeth on stuff, but it was also cool. And then there was furniture, but the whole thing was the presentation. Whatever that is, some people do it well and most people don’t. But I think she started it. Everything in design at the time was slick and boxy, highlighting craftsmanship, but this work wasn’t.

Delavan: It felt like something she could have sculpted.

Moore: And it was new. It’s always exciting to be woken up like that.

9. Unknown, but Possibly Jean-Michel Frank; Parsons Table; Circa 1930

Some pieces of furniture are so unobtrusive and chameleon-like that they hardly feel designed. Such is the case with the Parsons table, whose defining feature is its ratio: No matter the table’s size, its legs — which stand flush with the corners of its surface — must always be equal in width to the thickness of its top. It’s thought to have emerged from a design project completed in the early 1930s at the Paris satellite of New York’s Parsons School of Design, the result of an assignment often attributed to the aristocratic French decorator Jean-Michel Frank, who was a lecturer there at the time. (The American designer Joseph B. Platt is also often cited as having a hand in the piece.) Known for creating magisterial spaces for the fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli and the composer Cole Porter, Frank put aside his usual interest in such sumptuous materials as shagreen and obsidian, challenging the students to design a table so elemental that it would retain its basic character and integrity regardless of finish. — R.C.

Romualdez: Leading up to this debate, I asked ChatGPT for a list of influential furniture and nothing surprised me. [But] I wanted to [choose items] that influenced me personally. Growing up in the Philippines, I only saw things in magazines — like [1960s François-Xavier] Lalanne sheep [sculptures]. They were in Valentino [Garavani]’s chalet, [Yves] Saint Laurent’s library, the Agnellis’ Milanese apartment.

Moore: Unfortunately, Lalanne sheep are just signifiers of enormous wealth.

Romualdez: Yes, but for me, nose pressed to the glass, it made me question, “What makes something fancy?” People had flocks of them. When Julianne [and I were talking about our lists], she asked, “What’s your favorite dining table?” Although simple and plain, this is the first thing that came to mind.

De Cárdenas: We can’t not include the Parsons table.

Romualdez: A friend of mine, [the American philanthropist] Deeda Blair, used to tell me, “You can’t get an 18th-century coffee table. It’s a conceit of the modern world.” I was attracted to this as a foil to [what’s in] most people’s fancy living rooms.

10. Ettore Sottsass, Ultrafragola Illuminated Mirror, 1970

Although the Italian architect and designer Ettore Sottsass’s undulating electrified mirror, which emits a dusky pink glow, predates social media by four decades, it somehow anticipated the age of the selfie. Sottsass, who would in the 1980s spearhead the madcap Milan-based collective known as the Memphis Group, crafted it as an apparent tribute to womanhood — its ripples supposedly reference flowing hair and body curves. Such an idea may now seem a study in objectification; nonetheless, the mirror’s enchantments are undeniable, as proven by its vibrant second life on social media. The musician Frank Ocean and the model Bella Hadid are among those who’ve captured themselves, like modern-day Narcissuses, in its reflection. The appeal is obvious: It’s seductive, flirtatious and lighthearted — décor as an antidepressant in troubling times. Perhaps Sottsass himself best explained why the glowing, flowing mirror is universally beloved. “When I was young, all we ever heard about was functionalism, functionalism, functionalism,” he once said. “It’s not enough. Design should also be sensual and exciting.” — Max Berlinger

Stout: Sottsass isn’t my favorite, but this has been so influential, especially in terms of marketing and the rise of Corporate Memphis. Even though it’s from the 1970s, it seems to have been made for the Instagram era. He and [the Italian architect and designer] Gaetano Pesce have been so significant to an entire generation of designers, especially right now.

Antonelli: I don’t think we need to include Pesce.

De Cárdenas: Pesce was always niche and was left out of the design conversation for a long time. Now his work feels very relevant again.

11. Billy Baldwin, Slipper Chair, 1950s

Until the 20th century, what we now call the slipper chair was a private affair, a boudoir staple of Victorian-era excess with an armless seat to accommodate the wide petticoats and corset-bound women unable to bend over. But in the 1950s, the American decorator Billy Baldwin yanked the chair with an overstuffed profile out of the dressing room and got it ready for cocktail hour. He threw out the brocade jacquard and flouncy trim for something more clean-cut and modern; the low-to-the ground, high-backed seat became sheathed in a pleated skirt or tight slipcover tailored straight to the floor. (Baldwin believed that too many naked chair legs made a room “restless.”) Still, it didn’t completely escape its beau monde past. Baldwin’s clientele included the likes of socialites Jacqueline Onassis and Nan Kempner. For Diana Vreeland, he designed a slipper chair in a clashing print to complement the fashion editor’s scarlet chintz “garden in hell” room in her Park Avenue apartment. About his stump-legged rejoinders to Continental refinement, Baldwin once said, “We can recognize and give credit where credit is due, to the debt of taste we owe Europe, but we have taste, too.” — Max Lakin

Romualdez: I’m probably the most traditional decorator in this room. But I think we need to talk about banal furniture that you don’t realize is everywhere — that you don’t even think of as being designed. I was obsessed with this Billy Baldwin chair when I was in school. It’s tiny, but extremely comfortable. And I love that it’s dumb. It doesn’t do anything, which makes it so versatile.

Moore: Every furniture store in America has this chair.

De Cárdenas: I used it one time [for a decorating project]. There was a fabric that the client loved, and we didn’t know how to work it into the room. I was like, “Let’s just make a slipper chair.” It changes its identity every time you upholster it.

Nick Haramis: I grew up quite modestly, and every family in my neighborhood had a version of a slipper chair in the nice room.

Delavan: Originally, the slipper chair was supposed to be in the boudoir. He brought it into the living room.

Romualdez: I also love that he had extremely American taste when most people in that social class were Francophiles.

12. Philippe Starck, Louis Ghost Chair, 2002

Modern design in Europe and the United States was largely a reaction to the ostentation that came before it, particularly among royalty and other privileged households. One hallmark of the frilly old style is the Louis XV/XVI Medallion armchair, named for the 18th-century French monarchs with whom it found favor. Considered a cabriolet due to its rounded concave backrest and open armrests, it was much lighter than the close-sided bergère. More than 200 years later, the French industrial and interior designer Philippe Starck developed his version from a single mold injection of liquid polycarbonate, which hardens to a clear, lightweight and durable Plasticine material also used in cars and fighter jets. Although he eliminated the Medallion’s decorative elements, Starck retained its voluptuous profile, neither conforming to nor fully departing from the expectations of contemporary design. — Evan Moffitt

Moore: I hate this chair so much.

Romualdez: Everyone loved this chair in the beginning.

De Cárdenas: Do we hate it because it’s so ubiquitous?

Antonelli: No, we hate it because it’s so ’80s. But even though I find it terrible, it was so influential.

De Cárdenas: I love Philippe Starck and his total disregard for the history of furniture. Did you see that episode of [the comedy series] “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” [2015-19]? Jacqueline [Jane Krakowski’s character] doesn’t have any furniture because she can’t afford it. Kimmy comes over, and she’s like, “You don’t have any furniture.” [Voorhees] gestures to a completely empty space and says she has Philippe Starck Ghost chairs.

13. Margarete “Grete” Schütte-Lihotzky; Frankfurt Kitchen, from the Ginnheim-Höhenblick housing estate; 1926-27

In the aftermath of World War I, Frankfurt, Germany, responded to a growing housing crisis with a sweeping civic effort centered on affordable and modern public residences. The Austrian architect Margarete “Grete” Schütte-Lihotzky , a radical-minded proponent of Red Vienna’s social-democratic reforms who designed apartments for single working women, and, with the architects Adolf Loos and Josef Frank, complexes for veterans and the disabled, was tasked with developing kitchens for these New Frankfurt apartments. In planning her fitted kitchens, Schütte-Lihotzky, who lived until the age of 102, aimed to create something hygienic and dignified for the urban working class. She consulted labor-efficiency studies, interviewed housewives and women’s groups and took inspiration from the rigorously efficient galley kitchens of railway dining cars. The result was a space equipped with innovations such as a gas stove, built-in cabinetry and a tiled backsplash. The room was small by today’s suburban standards — 13 feet long by 7 feet wide — but Schütte-Lihotzky’s vision helped pioneer the notion of today’s kitchen as the center of domestic life. — M.L.

Delavan: I don’t consider a room to be furniture.

Antonelli: Well, we do at MoMA. Maybe this is a system or assemblage of furniture, but it really determined, at least until the arrival of the American kitchen, how we designed kitchens almost like boats: keeping everything together in one place.

De Cárdenas: Before this, were kitchens just a fire and a table?

Antonelli: They had several pieces, but they were all disparate and loose. This was in tune with Existenzminimum [a concept that was developed in response to the German housing crisis of the 1920s]. The rationalist architects of the New Objectivity were trying to fit as much as possible into an apartment and then orient it so that the sun would also help them live healthier lives and heat it up. It was almost like going back to [the first century B.C. Roman architect and engineer] Vitruvius, the idea that Nature can help cities and homes be cleaner, healthier and more efficient.

De Cárdenas: From Ikea to fancy custom kitchens, they’re all basically versions of this.

14. Ayse Birsel and Bibi Seck, Madame Dakar Sofa, 2009

When Patrizia Moroso, the creative director of the Northern Italy-based family furniture company that bears her last name, commissioned a show dedicated to the creative prowess and craftsmanship of Africa, a continent that had been historically overlooked by the Western design world, among the works that seized the imagination was the Madame Dakar sofa. Boldly graphic and rendered with both an eye to the future and reverence for the past by the designers Ayse Birsel and Bibi Seck, who split their time between New York, Paris and Dakar, it contributed to the current interest in African design and technique as well as a mania for Afrofuturism. Made in Moroso’s facility in the West African nation, the hand-woven indoor-outdoor piece is constructed by stringing the plastic threads used in fishing nets — in reference to Senegalese traditions — into a herringbone pattern, which is then slung like a hammock over thick, splayed steel legs. — M.B.

Antonelli: This is gorgeous, but is it influential?

Moore: It had an impactful moment, but it was over quickly.

Stout: I think we should include it.

Antonelli: I agree. Bibi, who spent his youth in Dakar, worked with African weavers to produce a couch that is free from any nostalgia, just celebrating the tremendous potential that can come from a true mind- and hand-meld with expert local artisans.

15. Unknown, Monobloc Chair, 20th Century

Design history is lousy with icons — this iconic sideboard, that iconic zoomorphic torchier — and many of them live on as “authorized” reproductions, costing thousands of dollars, while the rest of us make do with mass-market dupes. The monobloc chair is the antidote to such design idolatry: a single piece of extruded white plastic, immune to trend and cultish adoration. With a barely verifiable history, it’s both the original and the imitation, and costs very little to produce. To make a chair out of just one piece of material is something of a design Holy Grail, one that became more attainable around midcentury with advancements in plastics technology. Early mass-produced chairs — including Verner Panton’s Panton chair and Vico Magistretti’s Selene — were all a bit too polished or Space Age-y to achieve ubiquity. The French engineer Henry Massonnet’s Fauteuil 300 , from 1972, is often credited as the closest source for what we now call the monobloc, though it, too, is more refined than the standard issue. (There’s also a credible claim that Canadian designer D.C. Simpson created an even earlier version in 1946.) Depending on where you land on the affordability sustainability axis, monoblocs are either a triumph of democratic design or a mess of disposable mass consumption — the red to-go cup of chairs. Either way, it’s often spoken of as the most widely used piece of furniture in the world; the Zelig of plastic chairs, it shows up at both Biloxi cookouts and roadside bars on the outskirts of Jakarta. With zero adornments except for its flared legs and fanned seashell back, it cannot be called beautiful, though it is familiar, and for some people, that can have the same pleasing effect. — M.L.

Antonelli: The monobloc is important. It allows us to talk about history. It allows us to talk about copies. It allows us to talk about footprint. It allows us to talk about the history of plastics.

Moore: Who designed it?

Antonelli: We don’t really know. In every part of the world, you’ll find these chairs.

Romualdez: I had them when we first moved into our house in Montauk, N.Y., and some snotty person said, “I can’t believe you have these ugly chairs.” But they’re so practical and comfortable.

Delavan: Are they ugly or just ugly by association?

Antonelli: They’re ugly. But I do believe that the opposite of beautiful isn’t ugly, it’s lazy.

Romualdez: I’d nominated a Philippe Hiquily armchair from 1971 because it was one of the ugliest chairs I’ve seen. He literally just did furniture for the Rothschilds and people like that. But like with Miuccia Prada’s clothes, when you see something ugly, it’ll often affect you later.

16. Verner Panton, Vilbert Chair, 1992

The term “flat-packed” might trigger traumatic memories of trying to assemble furniture with puzzling instructions and a flimsy Allen wrench; one thing it doesn’t conjure is cutting-edge interiors. But by the 1990s, Ikea had partnered with a number of top designers, including the Danish master Verner Panton, who created this gravity-defying confection. Made from medium-density fiberboard (MDF) with a melamine coating, a material often used by the Swedish company, Panton’s chair has obliquely angled back and leg panels, held together with screws, that hardly seem strong enough to stand up on their own, much less accommodate a human body. Here, Panton, best known for his space-age designs, including the S-shaped Panton chair — fabricated in 1967 using a tongue-like piece of molded plastic — and his hallucinogenic interiors for hotels, restaurants and private homes, did the unexpected: He embraced hard edges, even if only as a matter of practicality. (Imagine, for instance, flat-packing his amorphous Living Tower, a more than six-foot-high upholstered seating apparatus from 1969.) The Vilbert stands as a homage to the Zig-Zag and Red Blue chairs by the early 20th-century Dutch de Stijl movement designer Gerrit Rietveld, as well as to the tinker toy aesthetic of the 1980s Memphis Group, its influences spanning about 50 years of candy-colored geometric dreams. — E.M.

De Cárdenas: I’ve owned these chairs.

Moore: Why’d you get rid of them?

De Cárdenas: There was a time when I had a very Memphis-y place. Then I sold it all at auction, at the only moment when this kind of fiberboard laminate furniture might have been valuable. This was Ikea doing high design and it was too ahead of its time to be commercial.

Delavan: That it came flat-packed is cool.

De Cárdenas: That was the whole point.

Delavan: That’s why it was relatively cheap, too.

17. Clara Porset, Butaque Chair, Possibly 1930s

“Butaque,” the Mexican name for the low, inclined J-shaped wooden lounger prevalent in parts of Latin America, refers to a shape originating in the 16th century, a colonial-era cross between traditional Spanish hip-joint armchairs and pre-Columbian duhos — often hardwood ritual seats used within Indigenous Taino Caribbean culture to commune with deities. In the early 19th century, the Mexican port city of Campeche was a locus of butaque production and the chair’s main exporter to the United States. (Thomas Jefferson was obsessed with them, conscripting enslaved carpenter John Hemmings to produce reproductions for his plantation.) The interior and furniture designer Clara Porset, born into a wealthy family in Cuba and educated in New York and Paris, may have begun making her butaques after emigrating to Mexico in the mid-1930s as a political exile for her participation in the Cuban resistance. Porset reinterpreted the butaque through a Bauhaus lens (she studied under Josef and Anni Albers, practitioners of the movement, at Black Mountain College in North Carolina), designing numerous iterations in local materials, including mahogany, wicker and leather, and reducing the structure to its essential form. Porset’s circa 1957 Modernist reinterpretation of the butaque is her most enduring design, a sinuous shape in laminated wood and woven wicker, with a high-backed seat balanced on half-moon legs. The Mexican architect Luis Barragán commissioned several versions; Albers, also enchanted with Mexican aesthetics, produced an interpretation of his own. — M.L.

Antonelli: Clara Porset, a Cuban designer working in Mexico, took a vernacular chair and made it into an object, which isn’t dissimilar from what [the Italian architect] Gio Ponti did with the Superleggera [chair, from 1957]. This is the Latin American chair. And it’s supercomfortable.

De Cárdenas: Although she was from a wealthy family, she was opposed to the class inequality in Cuba. I believe she went to Mexico because of its strong early socialist movement, and that’s how she became part of the Diego Rivera scene. I think this chair was meant to be sort of invisible — graceful, but not foregrounded.

18. Hella Jongerius, Polder Sofa, 2005

In an industry that prizes sober sophistication, the Dutch designer Hella Jongerius’s Polder sofa is a clever rebuttal: a monumental piece that’s proudly imperfect, flaunting its faults as virtues. Or, as this publication noted in 2009 — while acknowledging the paradox of the couch’s exquisite construction with its funky aesthetic — “[We] feel as fondly toward it as we would a shabby old sofa.” Its squared-off cushions in varying sizes and uneven backrests upholstered in gradations of earthy colors (clay-like reds, mossy greens, oceanic blues) are interesting from every angle, tufted with kooky, often subtly mismatched buttons of mother-of-pearl, horn or wood. Named for a low-lying system of fields in the Netherlands that have been reclaimed from the sea by dikes and drainage canals, the Polder is a love letter to Jongerius’s verdant homeland and its ingenious natural engineering, but it’s also a paean to the comforts of domesticity and the beauty of everyday life. — M.B.

Antonelli: I think we should include Hella Jongerius. We don’t have Dutch designers, and she’s truly one of the most important.

Delavan: But what is it about this sofa?

Antonelli: There’s something very informal about it. She uses buttons at random. It was from just before the time when she became art director for colors [and materials] at Vitra. And it’s a gorgeous, more contemporary precursor to Piero Lissoni’s Extrasoft.

19. Piero Lissoni, Extrasoft Sofa, 2008

Conceived in 2008 for Living Divani by the brand’s creative director, Piero Lissoni — who has also designed for Kartell, Cappellini and the kitchen maker Boffi, among others — the Extrasoft embodies several of the design trends of the last half-century in a single object: the move toward simple geometry; furniture that sits ever closer to the ground; and the profusion of squishy, somewhat overstuffed forms. But the sofa’s defining feature is its modularity, a distillation of earlier experiments in sectional design, including Mario Bellini’s bulbous Camaleonda (1970) for what was then known as C & B Italia (now B & B Italia) and Hans Hopfer’s vibrantly patterned Mah Jong (1971) for Roche Bobois. With irregularly sized orthogonal sections that connect via hidden hooks, it can be configured into a multitude of shapes; it’s as much interactive art as it is furniture. And because its orientation is largely horizontal, the Extrasoft can spread through almost any space, providing places to recline, socialize or sleep, recalling a giant platform bed or those sexy conversation pits of the 1970s. — K.G.

Antonelli: One of the interesting things about Piero’s couch, as with Faye’s chair and the Madame Dakar sofa, is that we don’t have other extremely recent pieces.

Delavan: I was also trying to figure out a more recent thing that’s important.

De Cárdenas: The idea of being able to move it around is kind of amazing, but I don’t think Piero Lissoni needs the airtime.

Haramis: I’m not sure that popularity should be a reason not to include someone.

Antonelli: He’s right — we’re talking about impact.

20. Charles and Ray Eames, Side Chair, 1952

Few designers evoke postwar American modernism — and optimism — better than the husband-and-wife duo Charles and Ray Eames , who lived and worked in Los Angeles. During World War II, the couple used plywood plies to develop new splints for the Navy, refining molding techniques they later applied to domestic designs, including the Side Chair, a simple shell mounted on an Eiffel Tower lattice of wire spindle legs. At once biomorphic and industrial, the Side Chair is now endlessly cribbed and reinterpreted, showing up in high-end restaurants and Brooklyn townhouses. Originally a molded piece of fiberglass that came in shades of gray, it’s now fashioned in postindustrial recycled material. Perhaps more than any other Eames piece, it fully expresses the couple’s animating principle: slightly goofy but still disarmingly elegant. — M.L.

Antonelli: If we don’t include it, people will say we’re missing [something by] Charles and Ray Eames. I’d do the fiberglass chair because it was also about using a material that had been an important part of the war effort.

De Cárdenas: I want to go on the record not to put in the Eames. I don’t think they need this. There’re entire museum shows dedicated to their work.

Haramis: I don’t think they can be left off a list of influential furniture.

Antonelli: There’re whole stadiums with seats that are derivative of them.

Moore: And it’s egalitarian design, and I’m all for that.

Antonelli: Even with Ray, we don’t have enough women on this list. How is that possible?

Moore: The … patriarchy?

21. Yayoi Kusama, “Accumulation No. 1,” 1962

Can an armchair be sexual? Funny? A feminist manifesto? In the hands of the Surrealist Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama , the answer is a resounding — and perplexing — yes. Her fabric sculpture is furniture reimagined through a provocateur’s lens. Covered in exploding clusters of hand-sewn stuffed tentacles, which Kusama has described as phalluses, “Accumulation No. 1” was constructed in her downtown New York loft, in the same building that housed the studio of her friend the Swedish American sculptor Claes Oldenburg . The chair also seems to have anticipated the strange eroticism of the Comme des Garçons designer Rei Kawakubo’s spring 1997 “ lumps and bumps ” collection 35 years later. Tapping into Kusama’s themes of repetition and whimsy, the peculiar creation originated from a more serious impulse: “[I] began making penises in order to heal my feelings of disgust toward sex. Reproducing the objects … was my way of conquering the fear,” she once said. It’s also been read as a taunt lobbed at the male-dominated art scene of the era and the ultimate subversion of a domestic object by a female artist: an armchair overrun with limp penises. — M.B.

Delavan: Are those …

Stout: Yes, they’re little peens.

Antonelli: I used to teach a class at U.C.L.A., and I’d say that there’re two big differences between art and design: One difference is that while an artist can choose whether to work for many people or not, a designer, by definition, works for others; the second is who you sell it to and how you market it. [The artists] Martin Puryear and Andrea Zittel are fabulous designers, too. But someone like Kusama or Donald Judd? No. Those are the ones who think they can just do something. I remember having an argument with [the former chief curator of painting and sculpture at New York’s Museum of Modern Art] Kirk Varnedoe. He said, “Paola, you should consider [acquiring a piece by] Donald Judd. I said, “Why? It’s bad design. If you want to acquire it for the sculpture collection, go for it. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s uncomfortable. It rips your stockings. It’s not childproofed. And if it didn’t have Donald Judd’s name, you’d never buy it.”

Stout: So much of the history of art and design has been about white men. I think this chair was a commentary on that.

Antonelli: While I appreciate that, I just don’t want to acknowledge any artist descending toward design.

Moore: Does design just mean utility? Whenever I have an argument with people about art and design, it seems to come down to the idea that design is something you’d use. And what I don’t understand is why that’s less than. As a person who wants to live with objects, I don’t value a lamp any less than I do a painting. I want to live with them both.

22. Gary Panter and Ric Heitzman; Chairry, From “Pee-wee’s Playhouse”; 1986

If your chair could talk, would it beg to be sat on? Would it complain about bearing your weight? In the beloved TV series “Pee-wee’s Playhouse” — created in 1986 by its star, Paul Reubens — an armchair is a main character. Voiced by the actress Alison Mork, Chairry invites a wide range of guests and regulars, from Dolly Parton to S. Epatha Merkerson, to plop down on her demented dinosaur face. With her velvety turquoise skin (or, as more prosaic sorts might call it, upholstery), oversize maw (with rounded white teeth positioned between the cushions) and circular eyes with curling lashes, Chairry was an important precursor to Barney, the singing dinosaur who emerged six years later. Chairry — along with the other anthropomorphic elements of the trippy set designed by the boisterous painters and puppet masters Gary Panter, Wayne White and Ric Heitzman — gently mocked the innocence of 1950s children’s shows and subverted the family values rhetoric of the Reagan era. Channeling the colorful postmodernism of the 1980s, Pee-wee’s world was an outsider artist’s pastiche of psychedelia, hippiedom and joyous toddlerhood. For some adult viewers, it was also a queer-coded haven. — E.M.

De Cárdenas: There were at least three tributes in The Times in the days after Paul Reubens died [in July 2023]. One of them was about what a truly democratic, inclusive show this was. I remember Cher being on a holiday special [1988’s “Christmas at Pee-wee’s Playhouse”]. You know how he’d always have a word of the day? Cher came to introduce the secret word. And every time he said it everything in the room would scream. It was a kid’s show, but it wasn’t just for kids.

Stout: Design for kids is so important.

Moore: And influential. As a parent, I think all those anthropomorphized pieces of furniture are wonderful.

Antonelli: It’s certainly very American.

De Cárdenas: Pee-wee spoke to gays and misfits the way that [the Swiss artist H.R.] Giger [known for his design of the title creature in the 1979 horror film “Alien”] spoke to bros.

Moore: Frankly, I don’t think bros are reading this article.

23. Nanda Vigo, Due Più Chair, 1971

The Milanese artist, architect and designer Nanda Vigo helped usher in the disco era with this chair, originally manufactured for the Italian furniture company Conconi SNC/More Coffee. While its chromed iron or brass tubing evokes Bauhaus functionalism, the cylindrical, fur-covered seat and backrest, not unlike the giant rollers that provide polish at a carwash, give it a touch of Pop Art kitsch. Vigo, who founded her studio in 1959 after spending time in Switzerland and the United States, was inspired by science fiction and the style codes of the burgeoning aerospace industry, as immortalized in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey . She also became known for her fur-lined conversation pits and staircases, like the ones she installed in the 1960s in the poetically named Lo Scarabeo Sotto la Foglia (the Beetle under the Leaf), a private residence in northern Italy. On the Due Più, the material adds a softer touch to the hard-edge minimalism of Vigo’s contemporaries, with results that are undeniably groovy. — E.M.

De Cárdenas: This was very ahead of its time. As ubiquitous as it is, I’ve never seen it at anyone’s house.

Moore: How do you use it?

De Cárdenas: Right? Like, “Sit here, have coffee with me.”

Antonelli: I would like to have a dining table with 10 of them. It’s not super comfortable after a while, but it’s pretty great.

Romualdez: It’s the perfect makeup chair.

24. Alvar Aalto, Stool 60, 1933

With three L-shaped legs and a childlike disk seat, the startlingly simple Stool 60 encapsulates the design ethos of the Finnish designer Alvar Aalto . The result of a partnership between Aalto — fresh off his work on Paimio Sanatorium, a triumph of 1930s Functionalist architecture — and the carpenter Otto Korhonen, it represents their first experiment together with what would become an emblematic technique: They sliced fissures into pale birch slats, softened them with heat and water and then filled each gap in the wood with a timber strip dipped in adhesive. They then bent the assemblage at a 90-degree angle, creating sinuous yet sturdy curved supports. The stool’s impact can be seen not only in the innumerable ways it’s in dialogue with its environment — a place to sit or a small side table, it can be stacked into an elegant column to be stored — but in its playful execution as well. Unsurprisingly, it’s been in continual production, and has been deeply influential: Ikea’s Frosta was widely considered to be an offshoot, and the streetwear brand Supreme collaborated with Artek on a 2017 version with a checkerboard motif. — M.B.

Antonelli: We need Scandinavian design.

Delavan: Then the Aalto stool makes the most sense.

Stout: It’s almost so iconic that I’m like, “Get rid of it.”

Moore: I have about 20 of the Ikea version of this stool in my basement left over from a kid’s party.

De Cárdenas: They make an Ikea version of this?

Delavan: Those aren’t quite as thick.

Moore: And very wobbly.

25. Shiro Kuramata, Feather Stool, 1990

“Enchantment should also be considered as function,” said the Tokyo-based designer Shiro Kuramata. There’s certainly a sense of magic to his Feather Stool, with its wisps of yellow and white plumage suspended in an acrylic block. Kuramata won early acclaim as the creator of more than 100 Issey Miyake retail environments, beginning with the brand’s first Tokyo store in 1976. Like the fashion designer, who died in 2022, Kuramata was innovative in his use of materials, producing chairs and sofas in translucent glass and acrylic, or steel mesh with diaphanous profiles. He created many of his iconic designs in the 1980s, when he was an early member of the Memphis Group, including the Miss Blanche armchair, an acrylic throne embedded with synthetic roses and named for the character in Tennessee Williams’s 1947 play, “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Both pieces, while heavy, give the impression of weightlessness. — E.M.

De Cárdenas: It’s barely furniture, and I like that about it.

Haramis: I’m kind of surprised we aren’t choosing the more famous Kuramata chair, “Miss Blanche.”

De Cárdenas: I prefer that this is a gesture to a chair. If it didn’t have that [short rounded back], it wouldn’t be one.

Moore: It doesn’t look very comfortable.

De Cárdenas: Yeah, I don’t want to, like, watch the Super Bowl in it.

Romualdez: Maybe chairs shouldn’t be comfortable. At some point, you want your guests to leave.

Research editor: Alexis Sottile

Photo editor: Katie Dunn

Copy editors: Diego Hadis, Courtney Pressler

Nick Haramis is an editor at large for T, The New York Times Style Magazine. More about Nick Haramis

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Origins and Construction of the Eiffel Tower

It was for the 1889 Exposition Universelle , the date that marked the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution, that a great competition was launched in 1886.

The first digging work started on the 26th January 1887 . On the 31st March 1889, the Tower had been finished in record time – 2 years, 2 months and 5 days – and was established as a veritable technical feat .

• Une première version bien différente
• La construction
• Durée de construction record
• Le journaliste Émile Goudeau visitant le chantier au début de 1889 en décrit ainsi le spectacle.
• Les planches de Monsieur Eiffel
• Extrait de la "Protestation contre la Tour de M. Eiffel", 1887

Key figures

The construction schedule, the design of the eiffel tower.

The plan to build a tower 300 metres high was conceived as part of preparations for the World's Fair of 1889 .

The wager was to " study the possibility of erecting an iron tower on the Champ-de-Mars with a square base, 125 metres across and 300 metres tall ". Selected from among 107 projects, it was that of Gustave Eiffel, an entrepreneur, Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier, both engineers, and Stephen Sauvestre, an architect, that was accepted.

Emile Nouguier and Maurice Koechlin , the two chief engineers in Eiffel's company, had the idea for a very tall tower in June 1884. It was to be designed like a large pylon with four columns of lattice work girders, separated at the base and coming together at the top , and joined to each other by more metal girders at regular intervals.

The tower project was a bold extension of this principle up to a height of 300 metres - equivalent to the symbolic figure of 1000 feet . On September 18 1884 Eiffel registered a patent "for a new configuration allowing the construction of metal supports and pylons capable of exceeding a height of 300 metres".

In order to make the project more acceptable to public opinion, Nouguier and Koechlin commissioned the architect Stephen Sauvestre to work on the project's appearance.

A quite different first edition

Sauvestre proposed stonework pedestals to dress the legs, monumental arches to link the columns and the first level, large glass-walled halls on each level, a bulb-shaped design for the top and various other ornamental features to decorate the whole of the structure. In the end the project was simplified, but certain elements such as the large arches at the base were retained, which in part give it its very characteristic appearance.

The curvature of the uprights is mathematically determined to offer the most efficient wind resistance possible. As Eiffel himself explains: "All the cutting force of the wind passes into the interior of the leading edge uprights. Lines drawn tangential to each upright with the point of each tangent at the same height, will always intersect at a second point, which is exactly the point through which passes the flow resultant from the action of the wind on that part of the tower support situated above the two points in question. Before coming together at the high pinnacle, the uprights appear to burst out of the ground, and in a way to be shaped by the action of the wind".

The construction

The assembly of the supports began on July 1, 1887 and was completed twenty-two months later.

All the elements were prepared in Eiffel’s factory located at Levallois-Perret on the outskirts of Paris. Each of the 18,000 pieces used to construct the Tower were specifically designed and calculated, traced out to an accuracy of a tenth of a millimetre and then put together forming new pieces around five metres each. A team of constructors, who had worked on the great metal viaduct projects, were responsible for the 150 to 300 workers on site assembling this gigantic erector set.

The rivet workers

All the metal pieces of the tower are held together by rivets, a well-refined method of construction at the time the Tower was constructed. First the pieces were assembled in the factory using bolts , later to be replaced one by one with thermally assembled rivets, which contracted during cooling thus ensuring a very tight fit. A team of four men was needed for each rivet assembled: one to heat it up, another to hold it in place, a third to shape the head and a fourth to beat it with a sledgehammer. Only a third of the 2,500,000 rivets used in the construction of the Tower were inserted directly on site.

The uprights rest on concrete foundations installed a few metres below ground-level on top of a layer of compacted gravel. Each corner edge rests on its own supporting block, applying to it a pressure of 3 to 4 kilograms per square centimetre , and each block is joined to the others by walls.

On the Seine side of the construction, the builders used watertight metal caissons and injected compressed air , so that they were able to work below the level of the water.

The tower was assembled using wooden scaffolding and small steam cranes mounted onto the tower itself.

The assembly of the first level was achieved by the use of twelve temporary wooden scaffolds, 30 metres high, and four larger scaffolds of 40 metres each.

"Sand boxes" and hydraulic jacks - replaced after use by permanent wedges - allowed the metal girders to be positioned to an accuracy of one millimetre.

On December 7, 1887 , the joining of the major girders up to the first level was completed. The pieces were hauled up by steam cranes, which themselves climbed up the Tower as they went along using the runners to be used for the Tower's lifts.

months to build the foundations

It only took five months to build the foundations and twenty-one to finish assembling the metal pieces of the Tower.

Considering the rudimentary means available at that period, this could be considered record speed. The assembly of the Tower was a marvel of precision , as all chroniclers of the period agree. The construction work began in January 1887 and was finished on March 31, 1889 . On the narrow platform at the top, Eiffel received his decoration from the Legion of Honour.

"A thick cloud of tar and coal smoke seized the throat , and we were deafened by the din of metal screaming beneath the hammer. Over there they were still working on the bolts: workmen with their iron bludgeons, perched on a ledge just a few centimetres wide, took turns at striking the bolts (these in fact were the rivets). One could have taken them for blacksmiths contentedly beating out a rhythm on an anvil in some village forge, except that these smiths were not striking up and down vertically, but horizontally, and as with each blow came a shower of sparks , these black figures, appearing larger than life against the background of the open sky, looked as if they were reaping lightning bolts in the clouds. "

Mr. Eiffel’s Blueprints

The following blueprints are copies of Gustave Eiffel’s originals, taken from the book La Tour de 300 mètres, Ed. Lemercier, Paris 1900

Debate and controversy surrounding the Eiffel Tower

Even before the end of its construction, the Tower was already at the heart of much debate. Enveloped in criticism from the biggest names in the world of Art and Literature, the Tower managed to stand its ground and achieve the success it deserved.

Various pamphlets and articles were published throughout the year of 1886, le 14 février 1887, la protestation des Artistes.

The "Protest against the Tower of Monsieur Eiffel", published in the newspaper Le Temps , is addressed to the World's Fair's director of works, Monsieur Alphand. It is signed by several big names from the world of literature and the arts : Charles Gounod, Guy de Maupassant, Alexandre Dumas junior, François Coppée, Leconte de Lisle, Sully Prudhomme, William Bouguereau, Ernest Meissonier, Victorien Sardou, Charles Garnier and others to whom posterity has been less kind.

Other satirists pushed the violent diatribe even further, hurling insults like : "this truly tragic street lamp" (Léon Bloy), "this belfry skeleton" (Paul Verlaine), "this mast of iron gymnasium apparatus, incomplete, confused and deformed" (François Coppée), "this high and skinny pyramid of iron ladders, this giant ungainly skeleton upon a base that looks built to carry a colossal monument of Cyclops, but which just peters out into a ridiculous thin shape like a factory chimney" (Maupassant), "a half-built factory pipe, a carcass waiting to be fleshed out with freestone or brick, a funnel-shaped grill, a hole-riddled suppository" (Joris-Karl Huysmans).

Once the Tower was finished the criticism burnt itself out in the presence of the completed masterpiece, and in the light of the enormous popular success with which it was greeted. It received two million visitors during the World's Fair of 1889.

" We come, we writers, painters, sculptors, architects, lovers of the beauty of Paris which was until now intact, to protest with all our strength and all our indignation, in the name of the underestimated taste of the French, in the name of French art and history under threat, against the erection in the very heart of our capital, of the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower which popular ill-feeling, so often an arbiter of good sense and justice, has already christened the Tower of Babel. (...)

Is the City of Paris any longer to associate itself with the baroque and mercantile fancies of a builder of machines, thereby making itself irreparably ugly and bringing dishonour ? (...). To comprehend what we are arguing one only needs to imagine for a moment a tower of ridiculous vertiginous height dominating Paris,just like a gigantic black factory chimney, its barbarous mass overwhelming and humiliating all our monuments and belittling our works of architecture, which will just disappear before this stupefying folly.

And for twenty years we shall see spreading across the whole city, a city shimmering with the genius of so many centuries, we shall see spreading like an ink stain, the odious shadow of this odious column of bolted metal.

Gustave Eiffel’s Response

In an interview in the newspaper Le Temps of February 14 1887, Eiffel gave a reply to the artists' protest, neatly summing up his artistic doctrine:

"For my part I believe that the Tower will possess its own beauty . Are we to believe that because one is an engineer, one is not preoccupied by beauty in one's constructions, or that one does not seek to create elegance as well as solidity and durability ? Is it not true that the very conditions which give strength also conform to the hidden rules of harmony ? (...) Now to what phenomenon did I have to give primary concern in designing the Tower ? It was wind resistance.

Well then ! I hold that the curvature of the monument's four outer edges, which is as mathematical calculation dictated it should be (...) will give a great impression of strength and beauty , for it will reveal to the eyes of the observer the boldness of the design as a whole. Likewise the many empty spaces built into the very elements of construction will clearly display the constant concern not to submit any unnecessary surfaces to the violent action of hurricanes, which could threaten the stability of the edifice. Moreover there is an attraction in the colossal, and a singular delight to which ordinary theories of art are scarcely applicable ".

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