At a time (1966) when the world's tallest building was the 1472ft Empire State Building, and the tallest structure a 2000ft TV transmission tower, Nippon TV Network Co. commissioned Fuller to undertake a design feasibility study for a 12 250ft (2.3 miles, 3.7km) observation tower. Details and illustrations of this megastructure are in Critical Path, pp.337-340.
The maximum budget was $300million, but such a tower was not possible at that price, so an 8000ft tower design was substituted. Pawley reports (p.162) that,
"in its second form the Yomiuri project was technically entirely feasible but it was defeated in the end by a final cost estimate of $1.5billion - six times the projected cost of the earlier version."
© Paul Taylor 2001