Underwood & Underwood stereograph card looking through Eiffel Tower to the Trocadero and Colonial Section, Exposition 1900. The Exposition Universelle of 1900 was a world's fair held in Paris, France, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate development into the next. The Eiffel Tower (La Tour Eiffel) is an iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris. It was named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Erected in 1889 as the entrance arch to the 1889 World's Fair, it was initially criticized by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design, but has become both a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world. The tower is the tallest structure in Paris and the most-visited paid monument in the world. The tower has three levels for visitors, with restaurants on the first and second. The third level observatory's upper platform is 906 feet above the ground, the highest accessible to the public in the European Union.