Tokyo City Hall

This massive structure houses the Governor and Metropolitan Assembly, similar to the GLA in London, as well as an army of bureaucrats, dominating the central Tokyo skyline. Despite the colossal scale of the buildings themselves, only three years of construction were required. Designed by Kenzo Tange, one of Japan’s most eminent architects, it is a defined modernist structure that makes use of its angular contours to impose dominance over its surroundings. The building was designed to resemble a computer chip, mixed with symbolism to suggest the reverence of a Gothic cathedral. Tange is Japan’s answer to Britain’s Lord Norman Foster, having won the Pritzker Prize for his contribution to Tokyo’s development.