City Hall and National Diet Building

Above, Los Angeles City Hall.

City Hall and National Diet Building

by Armand Vaquer

Posting some recent photos I took of the Los Angeles City Hall, I was struck by the similarities in architecture of it and the National Diet Building in Tokyo, Japan, particularly the towers.

One big similarity: both have been destroyed in the movies.

Above, the National Diet Building in Tokyo, Japan.

The National Diet Building (by the way, it received a profile in a recent issue of G-FAN magazine) is Japan's capitol building and it had been featured in a number of kaiju movies over the last 55 years, beginning with Godzilla (1954) and most recently in Godzilla x Mothra x Mechagodzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003).

Above, Godzilla tramples through the National Diet Building in 1954. This scene brought applause from Japanese audiences.

Another similarity, you will note that the tops of both towers each have a pyramid top and columns, although the National Diet Building's tower is much shorter than L.A. City Hall's. Both were built roughly around the same time. City Hall was completed in 1928 and the Diet Building was completed in 1936.

The L.A. City Hall was used as the Daily Planet Building in the Adventures of Superman from 1953 to 1957. It was demolished by the Martians in the original War of the Worlds (1953) (below).