Tokyo Tower (東京タワー, Tōkyō tawā?) is a communications and observation tower located in Shiba Park, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. At 333 metres (1,093 ft), it is the second tallest artificial structure in Japan. The structure is an Eiffel Tower-inspired lattice tower that is painted white and international orange to comply with air safety regulations.
Built in 1958, the tower's main sources of revenue are tourism and antenna leasing. Over 150 million people have visited the tower since its opening. FootTown, a 4-storey building located directly under the tower, houses museums, restaurants and shops. Departing from here, guests can visit two observation decks. The 2-storey Main Observatory is located at 150 metres (490 ft), while the smaller Special Observatory reaches a height of 250 metres (820 ft).
The tower acts as a support structure for an antenna. Originally intended for television broadcasting, radio antennas were installed in 1961, but the tower is now used to broadcast signals for Japanese media outlets such as NHK, TBS and Fuji TV. Japan's planned digital television transition by July 2011 was problematic, however; Tokyo Tower's height (333 meters) was not high enough to adequately support complete terrestrial digital broadcasting to the area. A taller digital broadcasting tower, known as Tokyo Skytree, was completed on February 29, 2012.
Read more about Tokyo Tower: Construction, Functions, Appearance, Mascots, In Popular Culture
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“Eclecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture: one listens to reggae, watches a western, eats McDonald’s food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and “retro” clothes in Hong Kong; knowledge is a matter for TV games. It is easy to find a public for eclectic works.”
—Jean François Lyotard (b. 1924)
“Culture is a sham if it is only a sort of Gothic front put on an iron building—like Tower Bridge—or a classical front put on a steel frame—like the Daily Telegraph building in Fleet Street. Culture, if it is to be a real thing and a holy thing, must be the product of what we actually do for a living—not something added, like sugar on a pill.”
—Eric Gill (1882–1940)