Umeda Sky Building
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Umeda Sky Building
   We arrived at the Umeda Sky
Building half an hour before sunset. The escalator rides for the first
few floors, the elevator to 140 metres and the final escalator are a great trip
before you get to reception to pay – Bear’s first over sixty-five discount since
we arrived in Japan. We took the tourist shot for the
date, passed the plastic tat machines to
settle on the viewing deck to watch the sunset before going up to the outside
level.
 A happy little Halloween balloon ensemble sitting on a
counter.
   A cafe, big on hot dogs, no one in the queue so
on Bear went. Would we have one of the many beers on offer ??? No, far more calories in the
splendid muesli based jobbies we chose. The muesli is healthy.......Mmmm.
The Umeda Sky Building has drawn a
lot of attention as the world’s first linked twin skyscraper, and critics all
over the globe have praised its design. In an article in The Times (May 2008)
entitled “Top 20 Buildings Around the World”, the Umeda Sky Building was
selected alongside such celebrated historical monuments as the Parthenon and the
Taj Mahal.
   Wiki says: The Umeda Sky
Building (梅田スカイビル) is the nineteenth-tallest building in Osaka
Prefecture, Japan, and one of the
city's most recognizable landmarks. It consists of two 40-storey towers that
connect at their two uppermost stories, with bridges and an escalator crossing
the wide atrium-like space in the centre. It is located in Umeda
district of Kita-ku, Osaka.
The building was originally conceived in 1988 as the "City of Air" project, which planned to create four interconnected towers in northern Osaka. Eventually, the Japan economic bubble of the 1980’s burst and brought the number of towers down to two. The 173 metres (568 feet) building was designed by Hiroshi Hara. It was constructed by Takenaka Corporation and was completed in 1993. The building features a rooftop observatory, The Floating Garden Observatory, as well as an underground market that attempts to recreate the atmosphere of Osaka in the early 20th century. At the base of the towers is an urban garden with walking trails and water features.
I wondered whether the man in charge got any sleep the night before or just took a clean pair of drawers to work with him. Ooo I’d have had to. He had to tell the four men to press their button to send the Floating Garden up on the four winches, then watch the figures as the 1040 ton block rose at 35 centimetres a minute. It took seven hours in all and two hours later all the bolts had been tightened. “The unprecedented lift-up method” was the first such attempt ever made anywhere in the world came to an end in the early hours of the 18th of May 1992.
An exploded diagram of where we are on the 39th floor.
The excitement proved to much for these men. We have done many tall buildings and night scenes so for a change and something a bit different, we have matched our arrival pictures with sunset or dark ones.
ALL IN ALL I LOVED IT WHAT A SURPRISE – STUNNING |
