Thursday 12 March 2015

Tokyo Michiterasu 2014 in the Tokyo Station Area

Multicolored illuminations on the walls of Marunouchi Entrance Building in Tokyo Station

It is a little bit old news, but an annual event, Tokyo Michi Terasu was held from 24th to 28th of December last year in the Tokyo Station area.

What is Tokyo Michi Terasu? It is an illumination event in the area in and around Tokyo Station. Urban streets are nicely decorated with millions of LED lights. The main event is the lighting up of the Marunouchi Entrance Building of Tokyo Station. Specifically, last year's illumination was beautiful commemorating the 100th anniversary of the station's operation. The theme of the illumination was "Color of Taisho era romance".

I saw multicolored illuminations on the walls of Marunouchi Entrance Building. They were pink, purple, blue, yellow and so on. Plenty of people were treated to the fantastic view. Since there are an established numbers hotels and shopping malls in the area, many people enjoyed the illuminations after shopping and/or an early dinner in the area.

For your information, the Marunouchi Entrance Building was opened in 1914 as a main building of the central station in Tokyo Metropolis. This building was severely destroyed by an air strike in 1945. Although it was repaired after WWII, the design of the roof was changed, because it was a stop-gap measure. JR East spent 500 million dollars and completed the renovation work in October, 2012. The red brick masonry of the building has been brought back to be the same as it was when it first opened.

 
Fantastic view of the special illuminations of Marunouchi Entrance Building in Tokyo Station