The lighthouse stands on military terrain facing the Pointe des Espagnols
It is essential for the port of Brest, safeguarding some 11,000 ships that pass through the bottleneck entrance to the Goulet de Brest, the only maritime access to the harbor of Brest. Its architect Jacques Ignace Hittorff, who also built Garde du Nord in Paris, considered its unique octagonal shape as "something more elegant because of the ridges that divide the shaft like the grooves on a column."