Did you know there are guide boards on the Palaceside Building roof that tell you which way is Mount Fuji, the National Diet Building, Asakusa and so on? We call them “view guide boards.” Did you notice they were cleaned up in April?
There are two: south (Imperial Palace side) and north (expressway side). The two photos above are the south board’s “Before” and “After.” Nice and white, isn’t it! (It is not just a trick of the light.)
Few people look that closely, but they had deteriorated quite a bit. On the underside, for example, concrete had crumbled and rebar showed in places (photo at left).
The tiled floor also had many cracks, and tiles were missing at the edges (the two photos at right, below).
The boards appear not to have been fundamentally changed since the building opened in 1966. In other words, they still show what could be seen from the roof fifty years ago.
Take the north board. Today, buildings such as Josui Kaikan press close across the expressway, and Skytree is just visible to the east-northeast. The board lists only Kokugikan, Kameido Tenjin and Kinshicho Station (photo at the end). Skytree lies a little north of Kameido Tenjin. Of course Kameido Tenjin and Kinshicho Station are now hidden behind buildings.
Precisely because they cannot be seen — why not imagine, “Ah, that is what used to be over there, and you could see it then…”?
