How is the tower lit at night?
The Eiffel Tower is lit at night by more than 350 sodium-vapor lamps mounted within the structure of the tower itself, making the tower look more gold than brown at night. This lighting scheme, designed by lighting specialist Pierre Bideau, is a major improvement over the rows of external floodlights that used to light the tower prior to 1985 (when the new system was installed). The new system is brighter, makes the tower more visible, and is more energy-efficient. (However, in all honesty, there are only two ways to light the tower—from the inside or from the outside—and in times past lighting it from the inside was not technically feasible, so there’s no real revolution in this lighting system.) I have a picture of the tower at night, if you are interested. The Tower also is equipped with revolving searchlights at the summit that operate continuously at night, as well as thousands of tiny flashlamps that make the tower sparkle for the first ten minutes of every hour in the evenings.
