Eiffel Tower, one of the most popular buildings in the world. What can we say that you probably didn't hear? Well, how about that it wasn't very popular when it was built?
The story goes like this:
When Eiffel, the owner of the company that designed and built the tower, proposed the construction, it raised so much criticism to it’s design, that a committee against the construction was formed which had 300 members (notably one for each meter of the building), many of which were popular french architects, artists and such. In one of their letters which was published in the most important daily newspaper of Paris at the time, they described it as a “hateful column of bolted sheet metal”, fighting against “the erection of this useless and monstrous Eiffel tower”. As the president and the minister of trade decided that it will be built regardless of the criticism, the committee against the construction dissolved, but a lot of them still remained against it’s “hidious design”. The famous writer Guy de Maupassant, which was against it even after it’s construction stated that he is eating lunch every day on the Eiffel tower, since it’s the only place where he is not able to see the tower in Paris.