Most major cities in the world have some iconic landmark, building or monument associated with them that are instantly recognizable to people around the world. New York City has the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building, Paris has the Eiffel Tower, London has Big Ben, D.C. has the White House and Rome has the Colosseum.
But if you were to ask your friends to name such a landmark in Tokyo, chances are they probably couldn't think of anything. Mt. Fuji, maybe, but that's just west of Tokyo, so it doesn't count.
The fact is, Tokyo does not have a powerful symbol of its importance and history like so many other cities do. The closest thing to such a symbol is probably the Tokyo Tower, which is really just a somewhat unimpressive rip-off of the Eiffel Tower.
Before I came to Tokyo, I always pictured a nighttime scene of bustling, rain-slicked streets lit up by hundreds of neon signs and video screens. This turned out to be a fairly accurate image of the city. My beloved "Time Out Tokyo" city guide uses such a picture on the front cover. The problem with using such an image as a symbol of Tokyo is that it is not unique to Tokyo - the picture could have been taken in Seoul, Shanghai or Hong Kong.
This lack of easy identification is somewhat puzzling, considering the Tokyo metropolitan area is by far the most populous in the world (Tokyo is home to 35 million people, compared to second-place Mexico City's population of 20 million, according to the United Nations). Maybe the Japanese simply feel no need to create an unforgettable skyline or construct impressive monuments; perhaps they feel their achievements speak for themselves. And building and maintaining such an unfathomably massive city is definitely an impressive achievement.
Despite its size, Tokyo has only one small skyscraper district. It is in this area that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, perhaps the most impressive building in Tokyo, is found. A few weeks ago, I went with some friends to this building, which is the second tallest in the city. After riding in the fastest elevator I have ever been on for a minute or two, we got off on the top floor observation deck, and I was almost immediately floored by what I saw.
The city didn't end.
In every direction, as far as I could see, which was a long way on this clear day, buildings and streets, people and cars and bicycles filled the area, with lakes of green here and there. Up until that point, standing on the top floor of Tokyo City Hall, I had been somewhat disappointed in what I perceived as a lack of a tangible landmark to document historical significance in Tokyo. Granted, I am a history major - one of the reasons I love D.C. so much is the knowledge that in places I can visit, decisions were made that changed, and are still changing, the course of human history. But when I saw the city laid out before me and tried to visualize the millions of people that lay within my field of vision, I realized that simply living in Tokyo is all the historical significance I need.
Since then, I've also gone places and seen things that have helped me place modern Tokyo in a broader historical context. For example, the dorm I live in is located in a city block interspersed with narrow, winding alleys, a common Tokyo layout that probably hindered firefighting crews on Feb. 23, 1945, when a U.S. firebombing raid killed at least 80,000 people - more than the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. Another example is the simple dichotomy displayed by a street-corner Buddhist shrine across the road from a 7-Eleven.
Tokyo may not have a ubiquitous symbol like other cities, but I think that's because Tokyo is a city of function over form, and that detracts nothing from its greatness. After all, when a city this big functions as smoothly as it does, is form really so important?
