Tower of the Sun
Seventy-meter sculpted tower with three giant painted faces, piercing the roof of a former world's fair pavilion.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Tower of the Sun in Osaka follows sculptor Taro Okamoto's standoff with architect Kenzo Tange, who had to cut a hole through his own brand-new roof at the 1970 Osaka World Expo when Okamoto refused to shrink his three-faced tower to fit. It traces the meaning behind those three faces, golden for tomorrow, sun for today, black for the past, and steps inside to the forty-one-meter Tree of Life, where close to two hundred creature models climb from amoebas to apes. Look closely at the tree's branches for the details left from the decades the tower stood empty and forgotten.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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