法埃菲爾鐵塔換“新衣”慶生

   The Eiffel Tower is to get a fresh coat of brown paint for its 120th birthday, but will stay open to the public throughout the 18-month makeover, operators said on Tuesday.

　　Two dozen mountaineer-painters will coat the Paris monument in 60 tons of environmentally-friendly paint, in a specially-mixed hue called "Eiffel Tower Brown" chosen to blend well with the city landscape. It will be the 19th paint job for the landmark, which gets a new coat every seven years.

　　Soaring 324 meters above the Paris skyline, the tower is the world's most visited tourist attraction, drawing some 6 million people each year.

　　In the past the tower has gone from reddish brown to ochre-brown, yellow, brownish-yellow and dark red, before operators settled in 1968 on the current color.

　　"This is the color that suits the tower best - its most elegant dress," Jean-Bernard Bros, head of the company that operates the tower, told reporters. "That is what all those who love the Eiffel Tower have been telling us for 40 years - so we have decided to keep the brown for good."

　　Designed by the engineer Gustave Eiffel, the tower was built for the 1889 universal exhibition in Paris and was initially dismissed as an eyesore by many Parisians.

　　埃菲爾鐵塔主管方于本周二稱，埃菲爾鐵塔將在它120歲生日之際換上棕色“新裝”，不過在為期18個月的“換裝”過程中，它還將對公眾開放。

　　埃菲爾鐵塔粉刷工程將由24名高空作業的油漆工完成，他們將用60噸環保涂料為這個巴黎標志性的建筑穿上“外套”，涂料的顏色“埃菲爾鐵塔棕”是專門調配的，能更好地與整個城市的景觀相融合。埃菲爾鐵塔每七年重新粉刷一次，這是該建筑第19次粉刷。

　　埃菲爾鐵塔高324米，高聳入巴黎天空，是世界最熱門旅游景點之一，每年接待游客約600萬人。

　　埃菲爾鐵塔曾被粉刷成紅棕色、赭褐色、黃色、棕黃色和深紅色，直到1968年被主管方確定為目前的顏色。

　　埃菲爾鐵塔管理公司總經理讓?貝爾納布羅斯在接受記者采訪時說：“這是最適合埃菲爾鐵塔的顏色，是它最優雅的衣裝。這是在過去40年間所有熱愛埃菲爾鐵塔的人告訴我們的，因此我們決定將一直使用這種棕色。”

　　埃菲爾鐵塔由工程師古斯塔夫?埃菲爾設計，當時是為1889年的巴黎世界博覽會修建。最初很多巴黎人并不喜歡它。