Eiffel tower: A utility tower turned into structural art?

Did you ever wonder why the famous Eiffel tower looks so strange and doesn't really serve any purpose?
Wonder no more, because the Eiffel tower was supposed to serve some purpose but it didn't end up doing that. What purpose exactly?
Well,  the Eiffel tower was originally planned to be built as an electric utility station, not just to carry electricity but also to produce it.

Why so tall?
That's because, back in those days, some scientists believed that electric efficiency would be greatly increased if the tower would be sending electricity 'rushing down' the wires due to the force of gravity, it was also thought that this downward movement would create much more electricity along the way, due to the friction in the wires.

So what went wrong, why wasn't the tower-station fully imagined?
That's because, what happened was that the project never received proper funding and after years of slow or no progress at all, the city of Paris had already grown in the meantime by leaps and bounds, and.. they've already found a much cheaper and easier way to transport its electricity to its suburbs, not to mention that there were now too many skeptics in its alleged electricity production capabilities.
But the tower planners weren't about to give up on it, especially since they had already invested so much in it, the grants were already given and the contract was never cancelled, so they started the construction process, focusing on its grand height and artistic qualities and leaving out the electric parts, and despite the protests of many artists and intellectuals of the time who hated the tower, they weren't about to change the design, oh no, they remained stubborn with their original plans, and after its completion in 1889, everyone in Paris looked up in wonder on this beautiful but strange 300 meter tower, a failed electric project, successfully passed off as modern industrial art.

Original plan