Cities of the World - As Model!

In Tokyo, in the new Roppongi Hills Tower, a new museum was created. With models of several cities they try to attract visitors. The different types of models used and the richness in detail astonish. Usually, a satellite picture of the city is glued to the top of the whole and sometimes even the sides of the houses are illustrated. Specially for the model of Tokyo this is a crazy thing to think of. I have no idea who actually did all the work. I guess they had each local school do some of the work for a couple of cookies.

Unfortunately, one was not allowed to use a flash in the exhibition. Therefore, some of the pictures are quite blurred. Sorry for that.

London
There are two models of London: The first one is of the historical city, where each house is colored according to its age, in three different stage. The older houses are darker. (1st Picture) The other model shows the modern part of London, with its business building and modern architecture. Both this and the following model are in wood, without any coloring or photo-realistic images.
Frankfurt
The city of Frankfurt is also here. The model is quite big and rich in detail, and nicely shows the oddly shaped bank-buildings.
Berlin	Chicago
Berlin, Potsdamer Platz.	Chicago. This Model is special because of its lightning from the bottom. Only because the buildings there are so uniform, its possible to the expensive plastic model, I guess.
New York
New York is one of the cities they used satellite imaging and where the image is printed on the streets and on top of the buildings. With great detail every bush is actually there, and the twin towers are there are transparent blocks. Manhattan and wall street are clearly to see, same as the skyline when you sit down to get a "normal" height.
Also, clearly to see: the west side, central park and the endless streets with the uptown skyline.
Shanghai
Also for Shanghai you can clearly see the way how new buildings can change the look of a city. Developed in a very short time, Shanghai looks more futuristic than any other of the cities on display. I find somehow special as very few buildings occupy a quite large space. This hints on the fact that the space is given by the government and not by capitalist markets, and is supposed to leave enough space for parades etc :-)
Tokyo
The Tokyo-Model is the largest by far, and of course the most detailed. Even very uninteresting sub-urban areas are displayed with an enormous amount of detail. The first picture is from the building-wise center of the city, Shinjuku, towards the South-East, Roppongi. On the front, you can see the twin-tower which houses the city government. Around Shinjuku, the houses are very small. On the second picture, you see from above the same area further southwards. At the horizon you can see the new Roppongi-Hills Tower. On the right, you can see the large park that hosts the Meiji-Shrine, and further right on the edge the start of the Olympic park. The Third picture shows Shibuya from above. You can see how the highway is crossing the station above.
Some details of the city: 1st, Roppongi Dori from Shibuya to Roppongi. Most of what you can see of the street is the Highway running on the upper floor above the street below. This ruins the street completely for pedestrians and people that live nearby. On the second and third picture, you can see Roppongi Hills quite clearly. I am, while writing this article, sitting on the lower corner of the D-Shaped TV-Asahi building in a Starbucks with WLan :-). On the Third picture, you can see a brown spot which is the former defense ministry, which will be replaced soon by something else. Nothing concrete is known yet.
The 1st Picture shows a view on the whole Model. You can see its vast size clearly. The person on the top-left points at Shinjuku, the bright spot is Roppongi, and the place right of the person at the bottom with the backpack is Shinagawa. The 2nd Picture is to show the level of detail: Every tree is there, every house front is painted! Last but not least, you can see the Rainbow Bridge under the visitor's platform.

You can see my pictures of Roppongi Hills also on this page.