Tokyo Tower was open to the public on December 23, 1958.
With 333 m in height, it soon became a Japanese icon.
To celebrate the 60th anniversary of its opening,
here's a thread with a review of all the free paper models
of the Tokyo Tower available.
1 - Simple Tokyo Tower model, by MS Japan
Download link:
MS Japan Office
(You may need to wait a little while the Power Point file loads)
Some years ago Microsoft Japan released a printable Power Point
file that includes some Japanese buildings.
Among them this very simple rendition of the Tokyo Tower.
At 9cm in height, with a 4cm base, it is the smallest
and fastest to build kit of all the free downloads.
Something very simple that you can easily give a kid.
2 - Simple Tokyo Tower by Canon
Download link:
https://cp.c-ij.com/en/contents/CNT-0024067/index.html
Increasing in detail and height, this simple Canon kit has good textures,
Great detail, and you only need to print one sheet of paper.
The base is 5X5 cm, and the total height is around 16 cm,
which makes this kit somewhere about 1:2.000 scale
3 - Pop-up Postcard Tokyo Tower by Canon
Download link:
https://cp.c-ij.com/en/contents/CNT-0024069/index.html
This is not so simple to build. You will need to consult the instructions f
or assembly. But the result is a very good one.
The envelope is 17X12.5 cm, and once open the Tower stands 14 cm tall.
The textures of the surrounding ground of the Tower are awesome.
4 - Small Tokyo Tower by Rei (Skyscrappercity)
Download link:
https://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1879920
By following the download link you will fin an old thread at SkyscrapperCity
with many architectural models designed by "Rei".
Among them, this version of the Tokyo Tower.
This is not so simple to build due to not having instructions.
It has some good detail for its size despite being designed in paint (apparently).
I decided to print the 4 main faces in transparent acetate, as it looked
better to me this way. If you decide to print all in paper you'll loose
most of the detail of the elevator, specially in the upper levels.
5 - Tokyo Tower by Shogakukan
Download link:
Shogakukan Tokyo Tower
Back in 1968 Shogakukan published a kit of the Tokyo Tower
with all parts contained in a box. The kit was aimed at children,
and measured an amazing 1m height.
In 2002, to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the company,
the kit was re-released, and a digital copy was made available
to the public for free download at their website.
What you get in the PDF is a re-drawn version of the original kit.
It sill has some of the unusual details of the original
(like a couple of hand-activated elevators, and a coin receiver
that stores your coins at the building in the base now obviously
too small for real coins). But because of it size some of the details
were also simplified.
The PDF includes a reproduction of the cover artwork of the original box.
If printed at the PDF size, the Tower has a base of 6,8 cm each side,
and a total height of 34 cm. Making it about 1:1.000 scale.
Maybe not the most beautiful or accurate, but certainly something
worth building in a good afternoon.
My reccomendation: print as big as possible. Letter size makes
everything too small to handle.
6 - Simple Tokyo Tower by UHU
Download link:
http://uhu02.way-nifty.com/die_eule_...nerva/050.html
This kits shows the Tower as it was in the 1960s.
As such, some details and the color scheme varies from other kits.
Its is very nice to build, has some great detail, and very good graphics.
Besides, it includes Mothra, and the possibility of disassembling
the upper part of the tower for hen it comes to destroy it.
The scale of this kit is 1:1000, so it stands around 34 cms in height
counting the base.
(This article continues in the next post)
.