Metropolitan Government Bldg

Metropolitan Government Bldg | Cocoon | Shinjuku Images

Another Kenzo Tange building in Tokyo, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building is probably best known for its impressive viewing gallery 200 metres above ground level which is not only open to the public, but free. In fact, on the day I visited, admittedly a very dark, cold, wet and windy February afternoon, there was not even a queue for the lift! Not a pretty building, but given that architecture is supposed to reflect its patrons, if not its time, then an imposing edifice, suitably dominating the Tokyo skyline, verging on the megalomaniac, is probably not entirely inappropriate. Apparently the twin towers are not a disingenuous attempt to "provide a more human scale" as the WTC claimed to do, but as an allusion to a Gothic Cathedral. Hmmm, jury still out on that one.