The coolest tower I’ve ever seen
November 2, 2009 by Juergen Specht · 40 Comments
Once driving near Osaka, I saw this strange construction in the morning fog.
Coming closer, I saw this.
The PL Peace Tower is in Tondabayashi, a city near Osaka in Japan where the international headquarter of the Church of Perfect Liberty known just as PL is located.
Build in 1970, the tower is 180 meters (590 feet) tall and was entirely created by the then newly discovered shotcrete technique, a technique to spray concrete onto wire netting allowing for the strange shape which would make Gaudi and Hundertwasser proud.
Due to the low center of gravity of just 12 meters above ground level, the construction is extremely earthquake resistant and could itself lift up again in the unusual case it would tilt 45 degrees.
Today the tower hovers over Tondabayashi and is also the place for one of the biggest annual fireworks in the world.
More pictures below.
What an astounding building – it almost looks like it has been sculpted by erosion!
Wow that is truly amazing dude!
RT
That’s great, wonder what it’s like inside though…..
looks like a dr.suess building
WTF?! Is that molded out of clay or something?
that is very very cool!
Japan, why do you do all the cool weird stuff?
In the second Photo, is that a Dude half way up, just above the central bulb on the left side, hanging out of a window?
looks like airplane safety lights. Due to the rather creative shape, they probably had to place them in places other than just at the top like most buildings.
Wow…that looks like a homage to Gaudi.
Thank you for sharing.
>Due to the low center of gravity of just 12 meters above ground level, the construction is extremely earthquake resistant…
Center of gravity has nothing to do with it.
Is it just me or does the first picture look like an arm giving the finger.
Why would they build something so awesome in a dump like that? I mean look at the parking lot in the last picture. That’s disgraceful. This thing should be surrounded by mythical gardens, not mini malls.
a complete eyesore. horrifying.
agreed.
Inspirated by RAOUL GIORDAN !
See :
http://meteor.proftnj.com/pix61.htm
http://meteor.proftnj.com/pix97.htm
http://meteor.proftnj.com/pix161.htm
http://meteor.proftnj.com/pix137.htm
and
http://meteor.proftnj.com/
What strange Japanese Architecture!!
Were they not the pioneers of building houses from paper?
Alucinante!!! Parece la Torre Eiffel construida por Gaudí!!!
Salu2
Eso mismo he pensado yo, jajajajaja :) ¡qué gracia!
eyesore.
I used to live near there for many years. Inside it’s quite a spectacle also. I remember on one floor there was a golden rocket like structure that reminded me of this ->
http://www.nma.gov.au/collections-search/results?search=adv&ref=coll&collname=Australian+Broadcasting+Corporation+(ABC)+collection+-+Play+School
Residents living in the area are asked to pay a yearly fee and for that they get access to the annual fireworks, presents and cards from the church and other benefits. The fireworks really are amazing. And during spring there are 10,000 cherry trees within the PL grounds that blossom for a couple of weeks, what a sight!
I heard about the spectacular fireworks and maybe next year I should have a look. Its so strange that there are hardly any images of the fireworks at the tower on the Interwebs…unfortunately the tower was closed for the day as I arrived, so I haven’t seen the inside. But thanks for pointing it out, you made me curious!
Amazing looking building, but totally crap landscape for such a unique building to be located at.
Wow.. what a weird tower. Unfortunately there is no picture inside the building.
I wonder what the architect smoke while making a blueprint