4 July 1925: one hundred years of the Citroën Eiffel Tower
On 4 July 1925, Fernand Jacopozzi lit up for the first time the 250,000 bulbs that turned the Eiffel Tower into the world's largest advertising sign. One hundred years on, a look back at the night that made Paris the City of Light.
It is four in the morning, 4 July 1925. From a bateau-mouche moored at the Quai Branly, Fernand Jacopozzi gives the signal. In seconds, 250,000 bulbs blaze simultaneously the full height of the Eiffel Tower.
A construction project without equal
Since 23 May, Jacopozzi’s teams have laid 90 kilometres of wire along the girders and rivets of the Iron Lady. The regular riggers, refusing to work at height, gave way to naval ratings and circus acrobats, suspended in the void at 300 metres altitude.
The client, André Citroën, has signed a five-year contract. His name — seven letters, thirty metres tall — shines forty kilometres in every direction.
Ten animations, forty seconds
Every forty seconds, a new animation takes over:
- Robe of stars — 250,000 white bulbs, simultaneous
- Signs of the zodiac — ascending sequence, one constellation at a time
- Flames — orange waves rising from base to tip
- The comets — three beams descend tracing C · I · T · R · O · Ë · N
Charles Lindbergh remembers
Two years later, landing at Le Bourget after his transatlantic crossing, Charles Lindbergh would recount seeing the Eiffel Tower’s flashes from the ocean — his first visual landmark on the French coast.
The installation remained in place until 1934, making the Eiffel Tower the world’s largest advertising sign for nine years.