Tokyo Tower

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Tokyo Tower
Image:Tokyo Tower night.jpg
Information
Location	Tokyo, Japan
Status	Complete
Constructed	1958
Height
Antenna/Spire	333 metres (1,093 ft)
Companies
Architect	Tachū Naitō
Contractor	Takenaka Corporation

Tokyo Tower (東京タワー, Tōkyō-tawā^?) is a tower in Shiba Park, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It is 332.6 m (1,091 ft) tall^[1], making it the tallest man-made structure in Japan.

The design of the tower is based on the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France^[1]. Despite being 8.6 meters taller than the Eiffel Tower (32.6 if the tower's TV antenna is included), Tokyo Tower only weighs about 4,000 tons, whereas the Eiffel Tower weighs about 7,300 tons.

It is painted in white and international orange according to air safety regulations. From dusk to midnight, the tower is brilliantly illuminated in orange (warm color) during the winter and spring and in silver/white (cool color) during the summer and fall. The lighting is occasionally changed for special events: for the first day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month (October) it is lit pink, for the first World Diabetes Day on November 14, 2007 it was lit blue ^[2], and for the Japan premiere of the movie The Matrix Reloaded, for instance, the Tower was lit in neon green.^[3]

As it is mainly surrounded by low-rise buildings, Tokyo Tower can be seen from many points in the central wards of Tokyo, such as Roppongi Hills, Tokyo Bay, the east gardens of the Imperial Palace, and the southern promenade of Shinjuku Station.

Tokyo Tower is a member of the World Federation of Great Towers.

Just as the Eiffel Tower is used in cinema to immediately locate a scene in Paris, Tokyo Tower is often used in anime and manga, especially if the anime or manga is set in Tokyo's Azabu-Jūban district, or because it is produced by TV Asahi, which uses the Tower as a transmitting tower. A common cliché is the Tower being used as a setting for climactic events or battles. Especially in the Japanese Kaiju genre, Tokyo Tower has a tendency to be destroyed quite frequently.

Contents 1 History 2 Facilities 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

[edit] History

In the postwar boom of the 1950s, Japan was looking for a monument to symbolize its ascendancy as a global economic powerhouse. Looking to the Western world for inspiration, the Tokyo Government decided to erect its own Eiffel Tower. One of the tower's key early proponents was politician and Sankei Shimbun co-founder Hisakichi Maeda. The tower was completed by the Takenaka Corporation in 1958 (69 years after the Eiffel Tower) at a total cost of ¥2.8 billion.

Maeda's son, Fukusaburo Maeda, later became president of Nihon Denpato, the tower's operating company. In 1988, at the height of the Japanese asset price bubble, he established a subsidiary (Tokyo Tower Development) to set up a golf course project in Chiba Prefecture. Although the golf course opened in 1995, it failed to make a return on its profits due to an economic recession in Japan, and the company ended up deeply in debt and losing money. As a result Tokyo Tower was mortgaged for 10 billion yen in 2000.

The planned opening of the taller Sumida Tower in 2011 is expected to further depress Tokyo Tower's profits as broadcasters move to the new tower.^[4]

[edit] Facilities

In addition to functioning as a radio and television broadcasting antenna support structure, the Tower is also a tourist destination.

The first floor houses an aquarium, home to 50,000 fish, the third floor is a wax museum, a Believe-it-or-Not Gallery and an attraction called the Mysterious Walking Zone, and the fourth floor is a Trick Art Gallery. There are also two observatory floors, the main observatory (at 150 m) and the so-called "special observatory" (at 250 m); both offer a 360-degree view of Tokyo and, on clear days, Mount Fuji. Unlike the Eiffel Tower, neither observation deck at Tokyo tower is located near the top of the structure.

On weekends and holidays, visitors can walk up the outside stairwell (of approximately 600 steps) to the main observatory instead of using the elevators.

[edit] See also

• New Tokyo Tower
• List of towers

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b} Tokyo Tower - SkyscraperPage.com
2. ^ [1]
3. ^ 東京タワーの秘密 -　特別ライトアップ
4. ^ "Capital's symbol mortgaged for billions," Asahi Shimbun, June 19, 2006.

[edit] External links

• realtime TOKYO - Live robotic webcam from Tokyo. One of the views shows the Tokyo Tower.
• Tokyo Tower official site (English)
• Tokyo Tower in the Structurae database
• Tokyo Tower Gallery
• Watch Tokyo Tower in 3-Dimensional view by using Google Earth. Modelled by frenchrogue

v • d • e Supertall observation and communication towers

Borj-e Milad • Central TV Tower • CN Tower • Eiffel Tower • Fernsehturm Berlin • Gerbrandy Tower •Guangzhou TV & Sightseeing Tower (under construction) • Heifei Emerald TV Tower (under construction) • Höiåsmasten • Jakarta TV Tower (under construction) • KCTV Tower • Kuala Lumpur Tower • KXJB-TV mast • KVLY-TV mast • Liberation Tower • Macau Tower • Odessa TV Tower (under construction) • Oriental Pearl Tower • Ostankino Tower • Riga Radio and TV Tower • Sky Tower • Stratosphere Las Vegas • Sydney Tower • Tallinn TV Tower • Tashkent Tower • Tianjin Radio and Television Tower • Tokyo Tower • Tower of the Americas• Torrena (under construction) • Vilnius TV Tower • Warsaw radio mast (destroyed) • Zendstation Smilde

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