From the Eiffel Tower to Christmas windows — all of Fernand Jacopozzi's documented illuminations.
1900
Universal Exhibition Committee · Paris
It was to see this exhibition that Fernand Jacopozzi left Florence at twenty-two. He worked there as an electrician, contributing to the illuminations of the Palace of Electricity. The Exhibition sealed his vocation and his life in Paris — he would never return to live in Italy.
1902 — 1907
Paris Motor Show Committee · Paris
**1902.** Fernand Jacopozzi is twenty-five years old. Having arrived in Paris two years earlier for the Universal Exhibition, he has learned his trade as an electrician at Paz et Silva. But it is at the Grand Palais, for the lighting of the Motor Show, that he first attracts attention. ## The automobile and the light The Paris Motor Show is, at the turn of the century, the great spectacle of modernity. Hundreds of cars — still rare and fabulous objects — are displayed in the glass-and-iron nave of the Grand Palais. The lighting design is a challenge: coachwork must sparkle, chrome must gleam, visitors must be seized from the moment they enter. Jacopozzi transforms the Grand Palais interior. Lighting is no longer merely functional — it becomes spectacle. ## 1907: the return Five years later, for the 1907 Show, he returns to the Grand Palais with greater ambition and resources. His company, Établissements Jacopozzi, is now established. The Motor Show commission confirms his growing reputation in Belle Époque Paris. It is the beginning of a career that will take him, eighteen years later, to string two hundred thousand light bulbs across the Eiffel Tower.
1917 — 1918
French Army / Clemenceau · Sevran-Villepinte
A luminous decoy city built north-east of Paris to fool German bombers. Never activated in combat — the war ended first. <figure class="doc-feature"> <img src="/images/faux-paris/autorisation-survol-1918.jpg" alt="Letter from the French Ministry of War, March 1918, authorising Jacopozzi to overfly Paris for his camouflage work" loading="lazy" decoding="async" /> <figcaption>Ministry of War, March 1918 — the Under-Secretary of State for Military Aeronautics, <strong>Jacques-Louis Dumesnil</strong>, authorises "M. Jacopozzi, currently in charge of various camouflage works in the Paris region and its suburbs" to overfly the capital by day and night, to study how points of interest appear from the air. One of the few written proofs of his secret mission. <span style="display:block;margin-top:4px;">Jacopozzi family archives</span></figcaption> </figure>
1919
City of Paris · Paris
Illumination of the Paris Hôtel de Ville for the Victory Parade of 14 July 1919 — the first Bastille Day since 1913. The same evening, Jacopozzi also illuminated the Magasins du Louvre; their directors invited him back for Christmas the following year, beginning a thirteen-year collaboration.
1919 — 1931
Magasins du Louvre · Paris
Thirteen consecutive winters of animated façades for the Magasins du Louvre: window displays, synchronised garlands, chasing-bulb canopies. Jacopozzi's principal client for Parisian Christmas illuminations.
1924
Magasins du Louvre · Paris
An Alsatian stork animated in 4,600 bulbs on the Magasins du Louvre façade: wings beating, beak opening. One of the first large-scale animated light displays on a Parisian shop front.
1925 — 1934
Citroën · Paris
The first permanent illumination of the Eiffel Tower — Jacopozzi's own idea, financed by André Citroën, whom he convinced to back it. Two hundred and fifty thousand bulbs, visible forty kilometres away. ## The original plans Kept in the family archives, these drawings reveal the engineer behind the magician: wind-resistance diagrams, working-stress coefficients of the rafters section by section, handwritten calculation notes — and even a project for a luminous clock that was never built. The file bears the reference **815 — "Tower of 300 metres · Luminous decoration."** <div class="doc-grid"> <figure> <img src="/images/tour-eiffel/dossier-815-couverture.jpg" alt="Cover of file 815: Tower of 300 metres, luminous decoration, Établissements Jacopozzi" loading="lazy" decoding="async" /> <figcaption>Cover of file <strong>815</strong>: two installations — comets and letters on three faces, luminous fountains on the fourth — and a project for a luminous clock.</figcaption> </figure> <figure> <img src="/images/tour-eiffel/epure-resistance.jpg" alt="Wind-resistance diagram of the lower part of the Eiffel Tower" loading="lazy" decoding="async" /> <figcaption>Resistance diagram of the tower's lower section, computed for a wind load of 300 kg/m².</figcaption> </figure> <figure> <img src="/images/tour-eiffel/coefficients-travail.jpg" alt="Handwritten table of the rafters' working-stress coefficients, section by section" loading="lazy" decoding="async" /> <figcaption>Working-stress coefficients of the rafters, section by section, with and without the luminous installations.</figcaption> </figure> <figure> <img src="/images/tour-eiffel/calculs-panneau-18.jpg" alt="Handwritten calculation note for panel 18 with Euler's formula" loading="lazy" decoding="async" /> <figcaption>Calculation note for panel 18 — Euler's formula <em>P = π²EI/ℓ²</em> applied to the iron framework.</figcaption> </figure> <figure> <img src="/images/tour-eiffel/horloge-lumineuse.jpg" alt="Technical drawing of the luminous-clock project for the Eiffel Tower" loading="lazy" decoding="async" /> <figcaption>The <strong>luminous-clock</strong> project — one face of the tower turned into a giant dial. It never left the drawing board.</figcaption> </figure> </div> ## In Citroën's memory Long afterwards, Citroën kept the memory of the operation alive: this fact-sheet from its **"L'Histoire"** collection recounts the 1925 illumination and pays tribute to the "magician of electricity" who conceived it. <div class="doc-grid"> <figure> <img src="/images/tour-eiffel/archives-citroen-1925-1.jpg" alt="Citroën 'L'Histoire' fact-sheet: the illumination of the Eiffel Tower, a tremendous advertisement (1925)" loading="lazy" decoding="async" /> <figcaption>"The illumination of the Eiffel Tower — a tremendous advertisement." First page of the fact-sheet.</figcaption> </figure> <figure> <img src="/images/tour-eiffel/archives-citroen-1925-2.jpg" alt="Citroën 'L'Histoire' fact-sheet, page about Fernand Jacopozzi and the 1925 light show" loading="lazy" decoding="async" /> <figcaption>Second page: Jacopozzi's portrait, the 1925 "real spectacle", Lindbergh, and the sign's evolution up to 1937.</figcaption> </figure> </div>
1928 — 1929
City of Paris / various · Paris
In 1928, for the tenth anniversary of the Armistice, Jacopozzi illuminated the Arc de Triomphe, Place de la Concorde, La Madeleine and the Palais-Bourbon simultaneously. The following year, he illuminated the Opéra Garnier for the fiftieth anniversary of the Avenue de l'Opéra. Together, these two seasons mark his recognition as the official illuminator of Paris.
1930 — 1931
Marcel Marchais · Paris
**1930.** Marcel Marchais, a graduate of the École Polytechnique, initiates and oversees the construction of an exceptional architectural ensemble on the Champs-Élysées: the **Maison de France**. The building, designed to house the French National Tourism Office, stands out for the purity of its Art Deco style. The design and illumination of the three façades is entrusted to the **Établissements Jacopozzi**. ## One building, three façades The commission is substantial: three façades on the Champs-Élysées, to be illuminated coherently and spectacularly. Jacopozzi — who has already transformed Notre-Dame (1930) and is preparing the Rouen illuminations (1931) — is at the height of his powers. Here he creates one of his final works: a lighting design that accompanies and reveals the Art Deco architecture without competing with it. ## A listed façade, an unexpected destiny The Maison de France façade — of the purest Art Deco style — is **listed as a historic monument in 1991**. Since **2005**, the building has housed the **Louis Vuitton flagship store** on the Champs-Élysées. The façade that Jacopozzi illuminated in 1931 is today one of the most photographed addresses in the world. Marcel Marchais (1896–1933) survived his masterpiece by only two years. Fernand Jacopozzi died in February 1932 — months after the inauguration.
1930
City of Paris · Paris
For the cathedral's centenary, Jacopozzi concealed 500 projectors in the forecourt shrubbery and along the buttresses. No visible cables, no surface bulbs — the stone appears to radiate its own light. The birth of indirect architectural lighting.
1931
General Commissariat of the Colonial Exhibition · Paris
Illumination of the replica of the central body of Angkor Wat built for the International Colonial Exhibition in Paris. Thirty-three million visitors, many of whom saw the temple only at night, under Jacopozzi's light.
1931
City of Rouen · Rouen
In 1931, for the five-hundredth anniversary of Joan of Arc's martyrdom, Jacopozzi illuminated five monuments in Rouen simultaneously: the cathedral, the Hôtel de Ville, the Palais de Justice, Saint-Ouen and Saint-Maclou. One of his last great works — he died the following February.