The Unsung Heroes: Koechlin and Nouguier

While Eiffel's name adorns the tower, the initial concept came from two of his senior engineers: Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier. Their stories deserve equal telling.

Maurice Koechlin was born in 1856 in Buhl, Alsace, to a family of textile industrialists. After Alsace was annexed by Germany following the Franco-Prussian War, Koechlin chose French citizenship and moved to Paris. A graduate of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, he brought rigorous mathematical training to Eiffel's firm.

Koechlin was brilliant but modest, content to let others take credit while he solved seemingly impossible problems. His notebooks, discovered decades later, reveal calculations of stunning complexity—wind resistance formulas, stress distributions, and thermal expansion coefficients all worked out by hand. His colleagues called him "the professor" for his methodical approach and willingness to teach younger engineers.

Émile Nouguier, born in 1840, came from a working-class family in Paris. He had worked his way up from drafting apprentice to head of Eiffel's methods department through sheer determination and practical genius. Where Koechlin provided theory, Nouguier understood how things actually got built. He knew which suppliers were reliable, which workers were skilled in specific tasks, and how to sequence construction for maximum efficiency.

Jean Compagnon, who worked under Nouguier, later recalled: "Monsieur Nouguier never forgot where he came from. He'd eat lunch with us workers, asking about our families, our concerns. When someone had a good idea, even a laborer, he'd listen. That's rare in a boss."