Saint-Gobain fabricated the floor with anti-slip laminated glass sheets for the first tier of the Eiffel Tower, located 57 meters above the ground and reopened to the public this fall after the completion of the renovation.
As part of the reconstruction of the first tier of the Eiffel Tower, architects and set designers
Moatti-Rivière, commissioned by SETE (the management company of the tower), proposed an innovative solution to the view of the city opening from there: around a huge opening between the four pillars of the tower, a clear glass fence is arranged, to which a curved glass transparent path adjoins its entire perimeter: its width varies, reaching 1.85 m. It is possible to walk along this path - although under your feet there is an abyss of 57 meters to the ground. Inessa Kovaleva recently shared her impressions of this glass field, which has already "become a sensation in the press", with the readers of Archi.ru in her article.
For the 128 m2 glass floor on the first tier of the Eiffel Tower, Saint-Gobain has developed a special material. For this, a very careful study of the characteristics of the glass and the optimal type of anti-slip coating was carried out, which was used in the project. The floor had to remain as transparent as possible, and slipping was minimized - which is why a pattern of dots of enamel and abrasive particles was applied to the glass surface using a screen printing method. It took a year and a half to develop a technology capable of providing excellent resistance to mechanical stress and at the same time allowing the product to remain attractive for a long time during use.
So, Glassolutions, a subsidiary of Saint-Gobain, developed and manufactured special sheets of glass 64 LITE-FLOOR XTRA GRIP for the floor (by laminating 3 layers of glass and 2 layers of high-strength film). The thickness of the structure was 32 mm, and the carrying capacity was 500 kg per 1 m.2… LITE-FLOOR XTRA GRIP anti-slip floor glass sheets were manufactured by Glassolutions in its own Eckelt Glas plant in Austria, which specializes in the production of glass for large architectural projects around the world. His track record includes the TKTS theater box office in New York's iconic Times Square, equipped with a glass public podium, the Acropolis Museum in Athens, and London's astonishing cucumber, 30 St Mary Ax.
