Ninety seconds on Expo '70 Commemorative Park
One sculpture you can walk inside is the reason to come: a booked tour takes you up inside Taro Okamoto's Tower of the Sun, through its Tree of Life.
The Tower of the Sun is an avant-garde sculpture and a building at once, about 70 metres tall, with two outstretched arms. Taro Okamoto made it as the symbol of the 1970 World Expo, and the park around it is laid out on the fair's old site. The Golden Mask at the top stands for the future.
Inside stands the Tree of Life, an installation that sets out four billion years of evolution as one climb. Lower down sits the Underground Sun, a face far wider than it is tall. It went missing when the Expo was dismantled, and the face you see now was rebuilt from photographs and records for the tower's reopening.
The tower is now listed as an Important Cultural Property. Around it, the Japanese Garden was one of the government's own Expo exhibits, and the Expo '70 Pavilion, once the fair's Steel Pavilion, keeps objects from the fair on display.
Okamoto's tower runs on timed group tours, so leave large bags in the coin lockers at the park gate as you come in, and be at the tower at least twenty minutes before your slot.
Groups of up to sixteen move one way on a short tour, and you cannot turn back once it starts. The artist's drawings come first. The rebuilt Underground Sun, whose colour and expression shift under projection mapping, is part of the tour too, and the climb runs up five staircases over six floors beside the Tree of Life.
You can take photos only on the first floor, and never with flash. Afterwards, walk back out to the lawns or on to the Japanese Garden, which your park ticket already covers.
There are no same-day tickets for the tower, so plan the day around your slot. A paid booking cannot be cancelled, refunded or changed in party size, so settle your numbers before you pay by card.
Reservations open up to 120 days ahead, and babies and infants need a reservation of their own. Strollers stay outside the tower, and so does any food or drink.
The park is large, so pair the tower with one other area, such as the Expo '70 Pavilion, rather than trying to cover it all in a day.
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