Tokyo Tower (東京タワー Tōkyō tawā, officially called 日本電波塔 Nippon denpatō "Japan Radio Tower") is a communications and observation tower in the Shiba-koen district of Minato, Tokyo, Japan. At 332.9 meters (1,092 ft), it is the second-tallest 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 income are tourism and antenna leasing. Over 150 million people have visited the tower. Foot Town, a four-story building directly under the tower, houses museums, restaurants and shops. Departing from there, guests can visit two observation decks. The two-story Main Deck (formerly known as the Main Observatory) is at 150 meters (490 ft), while the smaller Top Deck (formerly known as the Special Observatory) reaches a height of 249.6 meters (819 ft). The names were changed following renovation of the top deck in 2018.
The tower acts as a support structure for an antenna. Intended for television broadcasting, radio antennas were installed in 1961, but the tower now broadcasts 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, 332.9 m (1,092 ft) was not high enough to support complete terrestrial digital broadcasting to the area. A taller digital broadcasting tower, known as Tokyo Sky tree, was completed on 29 February 2012. Every five years Tokyo Tower is repainted. It takes one year to repaint it.
Since its completion in 1958, Tokyo Tower has become a prominent landmark in the city, and frequently appears in media set in Tokyo.A large broadcasting tower was needed in the Kantō region after NHK, Japan's public broadcasting station, began television broadcasting in 1953. Private broadcasting companies began operating in the months following the construction of NHK's own transmission tower. This communications boom led the Japanese government to believe that transmission towers would soon be built all over Tokyo, eventually overrunning the city. The proposed solution was the construction of one large tower capable of transmitting to the entire region Furthermore, because of the country's postwar boom in the 1950s, Japan was searching for a monument to symbolize its ascendancy as a global economic powerhouse.
Hisakichi Maeda, founder and president of Nippon Denpatō, the tower's owner and operator, originally planned for the tower to be taller than the Empire State Building, which at 381 meters was the highest structure in the world. However, the plan fell through because of the lack of both funds and materials. The tower's height was eventually determined by the distance the TV stations needed to transmit throughout the Kantō region, a distance of about 150 kilometers (93 mi). Tachū Naitō, renowned designer of tall buildings in Japan, was chosen to design the newly proposed tower. Looking to the Western world for inspiration, Naitō based his design on the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. With the help of engineering company Nikken Sekkei Ltd., Naitō claimed his design could withstand earthquakes with twice the intensity of the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake or typhoons with wind speeds of up to 220 kilometers per hour (140 mph).
The new construction project attracted hundreds of tobi (鳶), traditional Japanese construction workers who specialized in the construction of high-rise structures. The Takenaka Corporation broke ground in June 1957 and each day at least 400 laborers worked on the tower. It was constructed of steel, a third of which was scrap metal taken from US tanks damaged in the Korean War. When the 90-meters antenna was bolted into place on 14 October 1958, Tokyo Tower was the tallest freestanding tower in the world, taking the title from the Eiffel Tower by 13 meters Despite being taller than the Eiffel Tower, Tokyo Tower only weighs about 4,000 tons, 3,300 tons less than the Eiffel Tower. While other towers have since surpassed Tokyo Tower's height, the structure was still the tallest artificial structure in Japan until April 2010, when the new Tokyo Sky tree became the tallest structure in Japan. It was opened to the public on 23 December 1958 at a final cost of ¥2.8 billion ($8.4 million in 1958). Tokyo Tower was mortgaged for ¥10 billion in 2000. Planned as an antenna for telecommunications and brightly colored in accordance with the time's Aviation Law, the tower's two panoramic observatories are mostly frequented by tourists today; the tower constitutes a clear reference point in the center's chaotic skyline, forming a strong landmark, both night and day.
Tokyo Tower's two main revenue sources are antenna leasing and tourism. It functions as a radio and television broadcasting antenna support structure and is a tourist destination that houses several different attractions. Over 150 million people have visited the tower in total since its opening in late 1958.Tower attendance had been steadily declining until it bottomed out at 2.3 million in 2000. Since then, attendance has been rising, and it has recently been attracting approximately 3 million visitors per year. The first area tourists must visit upon reaching the tower is Foot Town, a four-story building stationed directly under the tower. Here, visitors can eat, shop and visit several museums and galleries. Elevators that depart from the first floor of Foot Town can be used to reach the first of two observation decks, the two-story Main Observatory. For the price of another ticket, visitors can board another set of elevators from the second floor of the Main Observatory to reach the final observation deck—the Special Observatory.
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