Tokyo Station Lights Up the Sky Once More

After five and a half years of construction work, the restoration of Tokyo Station to its appearance from a century ago was completed in 2012. Since it opened in October of the same year, it has become a popular sightseeing spot where you can see the old made new. Before the public opening, on September 22–23, a technology called “projection mapping” was used to convert the new face of the building into a giant 3D screen for a sound and light show. This spectacle, called “Tokyo Station Vision,” delighted the viewers who had come to watch.

Three months later, from December 21 to 28, a follow-up show called “Tokyo Hikari Vision” provided the main spectacle in “Tokyo Michi Terasu 2012,” an eight-day illumination event held in the Marunouchi area west of the station.

The show was one of the most talked about year-end events in Tokyo. Many spectators converged on the area from early on. It was so popular, in fact, that on the third day (December 23), the gathering crowd overflowed onto the roadways, causing congestion that was judged too dangerous. The display was consequently cut off midway through the show. As the crowding was expected to only become worse from Christmas Eve toward the end of the year, the organizers unfortunately had to cancel the originally planned shows through December 28.

In this video we present a 10-minute recording of the show with no cuts. The wonderful projection display, created by Muramatsu Ryōtarō, is titled “A Journey Through the Lights of the World.” It was shown 10 times from December 21 to 23 and over 200,000 people came to see it.

Video taken and edited by Ōtani Kiyohide（Nippon.com）
Projection mapping display created by Muramatsu Ryōtarō