Sapporo TV Tower

Stand still for a moment at the eastern end of Odori Park. Feel the wide, open space behind you, a long green strip running west through the heart of the city. Then tilt your head back. An orange-red lattice of steel rises above the trees, its girders crossing in neat triangles. Near the top, a large digital clock shows the time in glowing numbers. You are standing at the foot of the Sapporo TV Tower.

The tower was completed in 1957. That date matters. Japan was still rebuilding after the Second World War, and television was a new and exciting technology. Families gathered around a single set to watch broadcasts together. A tall steel tower in the middle of a city was a public promise that the future had arrived, and that it would reach every home through the air.

Here is a detail many visitors miss. The engineer behind this structure was Tachu Naito, a Japanese specialist in earthquake-resistant design. He is often called the father of Japanese towers. Naito also designed Tokyo Tower, which opened shortly after this one. So the steel shape above you is an older relative of that larger tower in the capital. In Japan, his towers are sometimes grouped together and called the Tower Brothers.

Look at the structure itself. The tower stands at roughly 147 metres tall. Its four legs spread wide at the base and narrow as they climb. That wide stance is not only for beauty. Japan is a country of earthquakes, and Naito understood how steel frames move and flex under pressure. The open lattice also lets the strong winter wind pass through, instead of pushing against a solid wall.

Now look for the clock again. It sits on the face of the tower that looks down the length of the park. For decades, people in Sapporo have checked the time against it. Office workers glance up on the way to the subway. Friends say, meet me under the clock. It is a public timepiece in the old sense, like the clock on a town hall, only made of light instead of brass hands.

An elevator carries visitors up to an observation deck at about ninety metres above the ground. When the doors open, the whole city spreads out below. Sapporo is a planned city. Its streets were laid out in a careful grid in the late nineteenth century, when the Japanese government developed the northern island of Hokkaido. From up here, that grid becomes easy to read, block after block in straight lines.

Turn to face west, down the park. Odori Park runs away from you like a green ribbon, with fountains, flower beds and rows of trees. Beyond it, the city ends at a line of low, forested mountains. On a clear day, look for the steep white slope of the Okurayama ski jump on the hillside. Sapporo hosted the Winter Olympic Games in 1972, and that jump was one of the venues.

The view changes completely with the seasons. In summer, the park below is full of picnics, beer gardens and festival stalls. In autumn, the trees turn yellow and red. In winter, snow covers everything, and the city looks quieter and softer. Each February, Odori Park hosts the Sapporo Snow Festival. Huge sculptures of snow and ice line the park, and this tower becomes a natural place to look down on them.

Here is a second surprise, and it is a playful one. The tower has an official mascot. He is called Terebi Tou-san, which means something like Mister TV Tower, or TV Father. His head is shaped like the tower, and he has a rather sleepy, unimpressed face. Locals and visitors find him oddly charming. Look for his image on signs, souvenirs and photo spots inside the building.

At night, the experience is different again. Lights come on along the avenues, and the grid of the city glows in long orange lines. Car headlights move slowly along the streets far below. The mountains disappear into darkness, and the city seems to float. Many visitors say the night view is the moment they remember most. If you can, think about returning after sunset, even if you have already been up in daylight.

The base of the tower holds shops and places to eat, so the building feels connected to everyday city life. It is not a tower set apart on a hill. It sits right on the street, close to the subway, the shopping arcades and the office blocks. People walk past it on the way to work, and the tower stays a working part of the downtown neighbourhood, not only a place for visitors.

Think, too, about how the skyline has changed around it. When the tower was finished, it stood far above almost everything in the city. Today, newer glass buildings rise nearby, and some of them are taller. Yet the orange lattice is still the shape people point to. It is a mid-century object in a modern city, and its age is part of its appeal. Its steel carries the optimism of the 1950s into the present day.

Before you move on, step back to a spot in the park where you can see the full height of the tower. Notice how the orange frame stands out against the sky, whether the sky is blue, grey or full of falling snow. Listen to the sounds around you: footsteps, the wind in the trees, perhaps a fountain or a street musician. Then check the time on the great clock, as people here have done for years, and walk on into the city it watches over.