Tower of the Sun, symbol of Osaka ’70, shines anew

Expo 2025 is being held on the Osaka island of Yumeshima until Oct. 13. For many Japanese, the word “expo” brings to mind Osaka’s Expo ’70, which drew 64 million visitors — equivalent to roughly half of the entire Japanese population at the time. This year’s expo is being held on reclaimed land in Osaka Bay, but Expo ’70 was held inland at Senri Hills. The old venue still exists, now called the Expo ’70 Commemorative Park, apparently resulting in some people looking for this year’s expo to head there instead.

The Tower of the Sun was the most conspicuous structure at Expo ’70 and still stands to this day. It was built by artist Taro Okamoto to express the expo’s theme of “Progress and Harmony for Mankind.” It was integrated with the Big Roof of the Festival Plaza at the center of the expo, designed by architect and expo general producer Kenzo Tange. As visitors proceeded through the tower’s interior, they were led out via its arms onto the main roof and beheld the futuristic exhibits there.

Originally it was planned that the tower would be demolished after the expo, but a movement to save it arose, and it was preserved on the assumption that people would no longer go inside. After more than 40 years without being maintained for public viewing, the building gradually deteriorated. Eventually, the Osaka Prefectural Government decided it was time to reopen it, and so carried out necessary seismic retrofitting and expanded the exhibition space underground. Visitors were welcomed again from March 2018.

Utterly unique, the Tower of the Sun was also controversial from the start. Despite being appointed producer of the exhibition, Okamoto scoffed at its theme of progress and harmony, saying: “Mankind has not progressed at all. What is progress? Look at the amazing Jomon earthenware. Harmony in which everyone compromises is awful.” Instead, he created the mesmerizing Tower of the Sun and its accompanying exhibition, inviting people to think about the origins of humanity. When visitors entered the tower through the basement, the first thing they saw was the “World of the Past and Origins,” a space where masks and statues of deities from around the world evoked the primordial energy of life. After that, the 41-meter-high “Tree of Life” appeared. Models of amoebas, reptiles, dinosaurs and humans were attached to its steel trunk and branches, and as visitors went up the escalator, they witnessed the process of evolution.

What is most interesting is the fact that this mysterious tower was saved by the will of the people — despite the fact that most of the expo’s structures, designed by Tange and other renowned architects with visions of a bright future, were almost entirely demolished. Last month, the Council for Cultural Affairs recommended that the culture minister designate eight buildings as National Important Cultural Properties, including the Tower of the Sun. The designation process is expected to take six months. A press release from the Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the tower as “a monumental legacy of Expo ’70 that is a manifestation of Taro Okamoto’s art using cutting-edge technology.”

At the center of this year’s expo is the Forest of Tranquility. And at the center of the forest, made with trees gathered from all over Osaka, is a round pond with Yoko Ono’s artwork “Cloud Piece” on two sides. Consisting of a round hole in the ground with a mirror at the bottom, the artwork was inspired by her 1963 poem “Cloud Piece,” which also formed the core of the John Lennon song “Imagine.” Back in 1970, the Tower of the Sun poked up through a circular hole in Tange’s Big Roof, a representation of the confrontation between art (the wild) and architecture (reason). The configuration of Expo 2025 has no such confrontation — but it still has circles, a shape that expresses harmony, from the central pond out to the Grand Ring, a giant wooden structure that surrounds the site, embracing diversity and expressing how we can all create a new world together.

It is no coincidence that the Tower of the Sun was chosen to become an Important Cultural Property in the same year that the second Osaka expo was held. That round hole made by the Tower of the Sun in 1970 has echoes in the current expo, 55 years later.

多くの日本人が万博といって想像するは1970年に行われた「大阪万博」だろう。入場者数は延べ6,421万人。当時日本の人口の2人に一人以上が訪れたことになる。55 年前の大阪万博は千里丘陵で行われ、その会場跡地に万博記念公園という名の駅があるため、現在開催中の万博会場と間違って跡地を訪れる人もいるという。

その会場跡地に今もそびえ立つのが、「太陽の塔」だ。芸術家・岡本太郎により万博のテーマ「人類の進歩と調和」を表現するテーマ・パビリオンとしてつくられた。当初は万博終了後に撤去する予定だったが保存運動の末、残されたという経緯がある。その後、大阪府は一般公開を決め、耐震補強とともに地下に展示空間を増築、2018年3月から塔内を見学できるようになった。

そして今年5月、文化審議会が「太陽の塔」を含む8件の建造物を国の重要文化財に指定することを文部科学大臣に答申。半年ほどで正式指定される見込みだ。文化庁の報道発表では、「岡本太郎の造形を先端技術で具現化した大阪万博の記念碑的レガシー」と評されている。

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