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Kyoto Tower

Kyoto Tower

Mamoru Yamada & Makoto Tanahashi

Photo: Don Ramey Logan · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Location
Shimogyō-ku, Kyoto, Japan
Client / Owner
—
Year
Completed 1964
Access
Tickets required

Kyoto Tower, officially Nidec Kyoto Tower, was designed by the modernist architect Mamoru Yamada, with Makoto Tanahashi of Kyoto University as structural engineer. The article names no client. The infobox and text agree it was built from 1963 to 1964, and it opened on December 28, 1964 at a cost of 380 million yen.

The steel tower weighs 800 tons and is built from stacked steel rings, not a lattice, clad in welded steel sheets 12 to 22 millimeters thick and painted white. The observation deck is at 328 feet (100 m), and the spire reaches 430 feet (131 m), the tallest structure in Kyoto. It was meant to resemble a Japanese candle.

Planning drew public opposition over cost and modern looks in an ancient city. The nine-story base holds shops and a hotel on floors 5 to 9. The article gives no hours.

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