One of Tokyo’s most iconic structures in pop culture, the Tokyo Tower remains a popular attraction despite being overtaken in height by the Tokyo Skytree (東京スカイツリータウン, Tōkyō Sukaitsurī Taun). The tower features two observatories, the Main Deck at 150m, and the Top Deck at 250m, with a four story mall at the base of the tower called FootTown.
If your first thought when seeing was that it looked like an orange Eiffel Tower, then you would be right. Built in 1958, the tower’s design was inspired by the Eiffel Tower in France, painted orange and white to comply with air safety regulations, and was built as a broadcasting tower to broadcast television signals throughout the whole of the Kanto (関東, Kantō) region. At 333m tall, it is actually 9 meters taller than the Eiffel Tower, but weights only slightly more than half the Eiffel Tower. The tower is primarily made of steel, and interestingly, one-third of it came from American tanks damaged during the Korean War.
The tower is also illuminated every night from sunset to midnight in two designs, the Landmark Light and the Infinity Diamond Veil. The Landmark Light is a standard style of using bright spotlights to light the tower up in a warm light during winter and a cool light during other times of year. On the Monday of every week (and other special occasions), the tower is lit up using the Infinity Diamond Veil that uses 268 LED lights across the tower’s 17 floors in different colors and different designs over the course of the year.
While the observatories of the Tokyo Skytree are higher, the tower design of Tokyo Tower itself is worth visiting for its pop culture value. Additionally, its illumination at night still makes it stand out along the Tokyo skyline. Whether or not to go up to the observatories depends on how much you like city views, and whether or not you’ve also gone up other observatories in Tokyo. The Tokyo Skytree, being higher up, offers a jaw-dropping view the very first time that you see it, while the Tokyo Tower offers a more intimate look at Tokyo’s skyline from lower down.
