New Photo Gallery - Tokyo Station at Night »New Photo Gallery - The Atomic Dome (Genbaku Dome) in Hiroshima, Japan
I've finally posted my photographs of the Atomic Dome (Genbaku Dome in Japanese) in Hiroshima, Japan.
Click here to veiw the entire Photo Gallery.
The building was originally designed by the Czech architect Jan Letzel and was completed in 1915 as the Prefectural Products Exhibition Hall, a kind of building common in Japan where locally made agricultural and industrial products are put on display and sold. (Think of a museum where the items displayed are for sale).
During the war years the building was used by the government agency in charge of fuel rationing. The building was the closest structure to the epicenter of the atomic blast that destroyed Hiroshima to survive. This was truly a well built and lovely building, and because the blast happened almost directly overhead, the force pancaked the roof and floors down to ground level, but left the walls and the iconic dome standing.
The Atomic Dome had some metal structural reinforcing bars added in the 1960's to prop up the aging walls, but is otherwise preserved just as it was shortly after the bombing. At night the Dome is lighted up brightly, from the outside with quartz lighting that give the walls a green color, and from the inside with tungsten based lights that give it an eerie orange glow.
It was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in December of 1996.
More info about the building itself is available on Wikipedia
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