#suita

[maureen2musings]

To brighten your day

chikayo8701

[warizoh]

2007 sky

//Warizoh | Buy me a coffee

[curucurumeguru]

【第3回 吹田だんじり祭 2024】

The 3rd Suita Danjiri Festival (2024)

[merpmonde]

The Tower of the Sun

With another World Expo underway at Osaka this year, a massive park to the North of the city (actually in the neighbouring city of Suita) sits on the site of the first Japanese World Expo in 1970. There's usually some form of centrepiece: in 1889 it was the Eiffel Tower, and at Osaka Expo '70, it was the Tower of the Sun.

It is a massive sculpture by Taro Okamoto, which it was possible to climb into to view another work called the Tree of Life. As it was going to have people inside, it needed a lightning rod - that's what the top face (officially a mask, but I tend to call it the "bird face" - whose eyes light up at night apparently) is sporting. The three faces on the back, front and top represent humanity's past, present and future respectively, though some art critics and historians have a more bleak interpretation due to Okamoto's larger body of work and stance against technological progress, something the Expo would put emphasis on.

Similarly to the Eiffel Tower, the Tower of the Sun was supposed to be a relatively ephemeral structure, and nearly all the Expo pavilions around it have been demolished. Like the Eiffel Tower, it was avant-garde and no doubt not everyone liked it. But this building is one of the few to be preserved, and requires regular attention - again, like the Eiffel Tower which needs periodic repainting. In any case, the Tower of the Sun is one of Osaka's most iconic landmarks.

[tenshiikisu]

🌸

[bonguri]

20240621 NIFREL 2 by Bong Grit Via Flickr: 水族館の人気者。この日もお子様の注目度抜群。 Photo taken at Daidoin temple, Mori town, Shuchi district, Shizuoka pref.

[s-h-o-w-a]

A ‘Healthy Capsule’ is seen at the Sanyo Pavilion during the press preview ahead of the Expo '70 in Suita, Osaka, Japan

[conformi]

Soyuz MS-18 launch, 9 April 2021 VS Isamu Noguchi, Expo ‘70 Fountains, Suita, Japan, 1970