How Was the Statue of Liberty Built?

The Statue of Liberty was constructed in France between 1875 and 1884 under the supervision of sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, who began drafting designs in 1870. He and his team hammered 31 tons of copper sheets—each about 0.1 inches (2.4-mm) thick—into shape and assembled them over a framework of four gigantic steel supports, designed by Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc and Gustave Eiffel, the engineer who literally made his name designing the Eiffel Tower (1889) a few years later.

Once the statue was completed, it was disassembled into 350 individual pieces and shipped to New York City in 214 crates. Upon arrival, the pieces were reassembled on a pedestal designed by American architect Richard Morris Hunt. The pedestal itself is made of concrete and granite and adds to the statue’s overall height and grandeur.