Monday, 28 November 2011

Buildings of Tokyo - St. Mary's Cathedral

Tokyo is a city full of very modern buildings, with very little evidence of structures more than a few decades old. This is largely due to the devastating destruction the city endured twice in the 20th century; firstly in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and again in the heavy bombing experienced in World War II. The result today is not what you can really call a beautiful city, with ugly, bland, concrete buildings and housing stetched over vast areas of the city. There is, however, some interesting and bold architecture, and the fact that that there isn't any beautiful heritage to protect as in, say for example, Venice, Paris or Rome, seems to enable buildings to spring up that wouldn't be built anywhere else. I plan to visit some well-known (and lesser-known) buildings around Tokyo for this blog, starting with St. Mary's Cathedral.

This cathedral was constructed in 1964 and designed by the reknowned Japanese architect Kenzo Tange. Among his best known buildings are the Peace Museum in Hiroshima and the Olympic gymnastics stadium in Harajuku. In fact, the cathedral has a similar curved roof to the Olympic stadium.
Standing freely from the cathedral there is also a 60 metre bell tower.




The bell tower is very narrow and the bells are only visible from the side - face on all you can see is the narrowly tapered tower with a crucifix at the top.

The interior is built in grey concrete with minimal decoration. The beauty comes from the big open space and the sweeping lines converging towards the ceiling.

When Kenzo Tange died in 2005 his funeral was held, appropriately, in this cathedral. The cathedral is located in the Bunkyo district of Tokyo.

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