On the Champ de Mars in 1889, the argument stood in plain view: a tower could be beautiful because every joint admitted what it was doing. Its four legs gathered load into the ground, while a repeated web of iron made calculation legible from the avenue.
Measure first. Ornament follows.
The drawings were persuasive for the same reason the finished structure was. Dimensions sat beside the lines, rivets punctuated the plates, and each span arrived as a consequence of pressure rather than decoration. Even the height—300 metres—read less like spectacle than a sum anyone could inspect.