Kobe Port Tower Audio Guide

Kobe Port Tower: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Kobe Port Tower

   Welcome to Kobe Port Tower, known in Japanese as 神戸ポートタワー. You are standing in Hatoba-cho, in Chuo Ward, on the Naka Pier that reaches out into Kobe's harbor. This slender red and white tower was built as the symbol of a port city, and it has played that role ever since it opened in 1963. Take a moment to look at its outline. The steel pipes curve in toward the middle and flare out again at the top and bottom, a shape often compared to a tsuzumi, the hand drum used in traditional Japanese music. The tower stands 108 meters tall, and its elegance has earned it a affectionate nickname: the beauty of steel towers. Over the next few minutes we will look at how the tower was built, how its distinctive structure came about, how it came through the great earthquake of 1995, and how it was reborn in a long renovation that finished in 2024. Today it is a viewpoint, a dining spot and a place to gather, so let's begin at the water's edge.

2. 02

   Kobe Port Tower: A Gift for the Harbor

   Kobe Port Tower was conceived to mark the ninetieth anniversary of the opening of Kobe Port. Construction began on the thirteenth of August 1962, and the builder was the Obayashi Corporation. The tower was completed on the twentieth of November 1963, rising from the middle of the Naka Pier, a spot with an open view over the harbor that drew crowds from the start. Here is a detail that changes how you picture it. The tower was originally planned to be painted silver. Under Japan's aviation law, a tall structure like this needed high-visibility colors, so it was given the yellow-red and white scheme you see today. A rule written for pilots ended up giving Kobe one of its most recognizable color combinations. The tower is also remembered as a pioneer in light. It is described as the first structure in Japan to be lit up at night, and for decades its glow has been part of the harbor's evening skyline.

3. 03

   Kobe Port Tower: The Drum-Shaped Pipe Design

   Now look closely at the structure itself. Kobe Port Tower is built from steel pipes that are assembled into a hyperboloid form, a curve that narrows at the waist. The inspiration was the tsuzumi, the drum of traditional Japanese music. Because the pipes cross one another in a lattice, the tower looks airy rather than heavy, which is part of why it is called the beauty of steel towers. This pipe construction is one of the tower's defining features. Instead of the solid beams you might expect, slim steel tubes carry the structure, and from a distance they seem to draw the tower in fine lines against the sky. The tower's quality has been formally recognized. In 2014 it was registered as a national registered tangible cultural property, a status given to buildings valued as part of Japan's heritage. A structure that opened in 1963 is now treated as history in its own right.

4. 04

   Kobe Port Tower: Light, Resilience and Renewal

   The most moving chapter of the tower's story belongs to the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of the seventeenth of January 1995. The Naka Pier itself was badly damaged, yet the tower came through almost unscathed. On the fourteenth of February, within a month of the quake, its lights came back on, with the hope that they would be a beacon for the citizens of Kobe as they stood up to rebuild. That gesture helped turn the tower into a symbol of recovery. It has been renewed more than once. A renovation from late 2009 to April 2010 cost about 330 million yen and brought a repainted tower, a new LED lighting system capable of 40 kinds of illumination displays, a refreshed observation room and better accessibility. Then, from September 2021 until April 2024, the tower was closed for seismic strengthening and renovation, and wrapped in white sheeting. In December 2023, at a lighting ceremony on the twenty-first, it was unveiled again, and local people who had gathered cheered. The renovation added a glass-enclosed rooftop observation floor with a full 360-degree panorama. Direct elevator service now runs from the ground floor to the fifth-floor observation deck. The old neon sign reading PORT OF KOBE at the top was replaced with LED lighting, and the original neon sign was set up as a monument on a lawn just south of the Kobe Customs building.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off from Kobe Port Tower

   Kobe Port Tower is not only something to look at from below. The lower floors, from the first to the fourth, now hold restaurants with outdoor terraces. There is a café, restaurant and bar on the third floor with a mid-century modern style that echoes the era when the tower was born. There are also shops, including Hyogo Prefecture's first BEAMS JAPAN store, a shop of local products and a pop-up space, and a gift counter where part of the sales supports the waterfront area and young artists. Before you move on, step out to the open space at the foot of the tower, called Carnival Site, where events are planned. Then look up once more at the curve of the pipes and think about the shape of a drum. Try noticing the tower from different places around the harbor, and see how its look changes as the light shifts toward evening. The Naka Pier and the waterfront around it have many more stories waiting for you.