The iconic 東京駅 (Tokyo Station) near the 皇居 (Japanese Imperial Palace) was built in 1914 but it was destroyed in the World War II Allied bombings of Tokyo in the 1940’s.
After the war, it was rebuilt similarly, but not exactly the same, as it originally was.
One main difference was the fancy glass domes on top of the original station building were replaced with a simpler design.
This is how Tokyo Station looked when I came to Japan.
Tokyo Station will be 100 years old in 2014. So, the government decided, a few years ago, to redesign the station back to how it looked when it was originally built.
The renovations were completed on schedule and the renovated (retro) Tokyo Station had it’s grand re-opening yesterday (2012 October 1st (which was 都民の日 (Tokyo Residents Day)).
This is how Tokyo Station looks now…like it looked 100 years ago.
Just like all grand openings, the stores and restaurants in the station had specials and sales for the occasions…so of course, the station was crowded yesterday with people who wanted to take advantage of the specials and also wanted to see the newly designed station.
Tokyo Five 
So often, the old way is still the best.
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Yeah, although I understand the reason that they changed the design in the ’50s…I’m glad they finally went back to the original design.
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How beautiful the present station looks! Quite an improvement!
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The reason that the previous design was different from the original was because the WW2 bombing caused the glass in the original dome to come crashing down … so they decided to rebuild it after the war without the glass in the ceiling.
They went back to the original design now because architecture design has improved over the decades.
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Wow, you still had the picture of the station when you came to Japan? I prefer its restored look or the old architecture.
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Sorry … I guess I wasn’t clear in this post.
I didn’t take that photo in 1990 when I came here.
There weren’t digital cameras back then — it would require too much time and effort to put the photographs that I took back then online.
But the architecture of the station looked like that when I came here. It looked like that until recently.
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