Asahi Beer Hall
Encyclopedia
Asahi Breweries
Asahi Breweries, Ltd. is a leading brewery and soft drink company based in Tokyo, Japan. The company has a 40% share of the Japanese beer market....
headquarters located on the east bank of the Sumida River
Sumida River
The is a river which flows through Tokyo, Japan. It branches from the Arakawa River at Iwabuchi and flows into Tokyo Bay. Its tributaries include the Kanda and Shakujii rivers....
in Sumida
Sumida, Tokyo
is one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo, Japan. It calls itself Sumida City in English.As of 2008, the ward has an estimated population of 240,296 and a density of 17,480 persons per km²...
, Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. It was designed by French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
designer
Designer
A designer is a person who designs. More formally, a designer is an agent that "specifies the structural properties of a design object". In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, such as consumer products, processes, laws, games and graphics, is referred to as a...
Philippe Starck
Philippe Starck
Philippe Patrick Starck is a French product designer and probably the best known designer in the New Design style...
and was completed in 1989. It is considered one of Tokyo's most recognizable modern structures.
The shape of the building is that of a beer glass, designed to complement the neighboring golden beer mug-shaped building housing the Asahi Breweries
Asahi Breweries
Asahi Breweries, Ltd. is a leading brewery and soft drink company based in Tokyo, Japan. The company has a 40% share of the Japanese beer market....
offices.
The Asahi Flame (Flamme d'Or)
It is noted for the Asahi Flame, an enormous golden structure at the top, said to represent both the 'burning heart of Asahi beer' and a frothy head. The 360-tonne golden flame was made by shipbuilders using submarineSubmarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
-construction
Construction
In the fields of architecture and civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure. Far from being a single activity, large scale construction is a feat of human multitasking...
techniques. It is completely empty.
The Asahi Flame is often colloquially referred to as "the golden turd" (kin no unko, 金のうんこ) and the Asahi Beer Hall itself as "poo building" (unko-biru, うんこビル) by many Tokyo residents.
Access
The building is a 3 minute-walk from Asakusa StationAsakusa Station
is a railway station in the Asakusa district of Taito, Tokyo, Japan.-Lines:* Tobu Isesaki Line* Toei Asakusa Line '* Tokyo Metro Ginza Line 'The Tsukuba Express Asakusa Station is located about 600 m to the west.-Tobu Railway:...
, on the opposite side of the Sumida River.