Watkin’s Tower: London’s Failed Eiffel Tower

June 13, 2025 by Maya Posch 8 Comments

The city of London is no stranger to tall constructions today, but long before the first skyscrapers would loom above its streets, Watkin’s Tower was supposed to be the tallest structure in not only London but also the entirety of the UK. Inspired by France’s recently opened Eiffel tower, railway entrepreneur and Member of Parliament [Sir Edward Watkin] wanted to erect a structure that would rival the Eiffel tower, as part of a new attraction park to be constructed near the Middlesex hamlet of Wembley. In a retrospective, [Rob’s London] channel takes a look at what came to be known as Watkin’s Folly among other flattering names.

The first stage of Watkin's Tower at Wembley Park. The only to be ever completed. (Source: Wikimedia) — The first stage of Watkin’s Tower at Wembley Park. The only to be ever completed. (Source: Wikimedia)

After [Gustave Eiffel], the architect of the Eiffel tower recused himself, a design competition was held for a tower design, with the Illustrated Catalogue of the 68 designs submitted available for our perusal. The winner turned out to be #37, an eight-legged, 366 meter tall tower, much taller than the 312.2 meter tall Eiffel tower, along with multiple observation decks and various luxuries to be enjoyed by visitors to Wembley Park.

Naturally, [Watkin] commissioned a redesign to make it cheaper, which halved the number of legs, causing subsidence of the soil and other grievances later on. Before construction could finish, the responsible company went bankrupt and the one constructed section was demolished by 1907. Despite this, Wembley Park was a success and remains so to this day with Wembley Stadium built where Watkin’s Folly once stood.

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New Take On The Camera Obscura Brings Paris Indoors

August 19, 2023 by Dan Maloney 13 Comments

We haven’t checked, but we’ll go out on a limb here and say this is the first project we’ve featured with a BOM that includes “an apartment in Paris with a breathtaking view of the Eiffel Tower.” We suppose there are other places in the world where a giant camera obscura like this would work too, but you’ve got to admit that the view is pretty spectacular.

Of course, a camera obscura is really just a dark room — that’s literally what it means in Latin — with a small aperture to admit light from the outside world. This projects an inverted image on the opposite wall, which must have looked absolutely magical to pre-technical people and honestly is still pretty stunning today. Either way, it’s a low-tech way of seeing the world in a different light. [Mathieu Stern] decided his camera obscura would turn the traditional design on its head. Literally — he wanted an upright image. Luckily, he found a supplier that makes special optics for camera obscura that do just that. It looks like the optic uses a Dove prism to invert the image, or in this case to turn it back into an upright image.

The real hack here was finding the perfect place with just the right view of the Eiffel Tower — not at all an easy task in a medieval city where streets go where they will and buildings tend to block the sightlines. [Mathieu] eventually managed to find just the right place. With a little aluminum foil to make the rented room really obscura and some strategically positioned sheets to improve the projection surface, he was able to project some beautiful images of the landmark and surrounding cityscape in a panorama on the apartment walls. The video below has some stills and time-lapse sequences that are pretty breathtaking.

We’ve seen other camera obscura before, including this mobile version which may have made things easier for [Mathieu], at the price of giving up a lot of the charm.

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Spectacular View Of The Eiffel Tower Is All Done With Mirrors

December 14, 2015 by Dan Maloney 57 Comments

What Parisian wouldn’t want an apartment with a view of the Eiffel Tower? Alas, not every window can face the famed landmark, and for some, the million Euro view is tantalizingly out of reach. Such was the case for [Lurluberlu], but with a little optical trickery he was able to peer around a corner to deliver spectacular views of the Eiffel Tower to his bedroom.

[Lurluberlu] devised a simple horizontal periscope using two full-length mirrors. The video after the break shows the build – as a side note, we’re very jealous of his hand tool packed workshop. With some plywood backing and simple swivels, the mirrors were mounted on his window sill to bounce the iconic tower’s image inside. After a little adjustment, the image is perfectly framed by the window, and with the lights off in the apartment, the view from the bed is quite spectacular. Our bet is that it’s quite a bit cheaper than moving to a flat with a better view.

Of course, with a little ingenuity (and a balcony) anyone can have a view of the City of Light. Or anywhere else for that matter.

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