Once Upon a Time Is Now

Once upon a time, a formidable, cave-dwelling dragon devoured the children in the village of Koshigo, Japan. Benzaiten, the White Goddess of Fortune, vowed to stop the slaughter. Having caused a great earthquake, she descended from the clouds and, through her good influence, stopped the dragon’s murderous ways. With her appearance, the island of Enoshima emerged from the sea. Since then, the goddess, one of the seven lucky Japanese deities, has been venerated at the sea resort near Tokyo.

Because the goddess is often depicted with a dragon, the Enoshima Spa and Resort honored her with a high-tech, LED sculpture. The Dragon Tower, a formidable, audiovisual sculpture, comprises a set of matching, LED videoscreens that form a symbolic dragon that encircles a 40-ft. tower.

The audiovisual, entertainment attraction presents a 20-minute video show across cylindrical videoscreens. Periodically, at its base, a separate, water fountain gushes up in sync with the video program. The tower’s two dragon heads erupt in a fire-breathing finale.

Architect Kilhak Kunimoto, of Atlanta-based Kunimoto Architect Design Group, explained that the resort wanted to draw tourists and local visitors with a spectacular electronic display "that is expected to become an iconic, entertainment destination in its own right." As a visual-entertainment offering, the Dragon Tower is the island’s version of Las Vegas’ Fremont Street Experience.

Scaling the curves

Another member of the Enoshima Dragon Tower design team, Stone Mountain (GA) Productions, conceptualized the wraparound LED videoscreens and also served as design specifier and system integrator for the entire project.

Bob Daffin, Stone Mountain’s CEO, characterized the tower’s multimedia capabilities: "With its visual-display presence, the tower functions in several ways to represent the Enoshima Resort, serving simultaneously as an advertising medium, a special-event promotion platform and an entertainment attraction, all designed from a single, visual-display package."

To fabricate the dual, spiraling, video displays, LED sign manufacturer |2090| (City of Industry, CA) transformed the screens into a practical, video-display system. Bill McHugh, Optec’s vice president of sales, explained that the unique project, which he believes is the first of its kind, posed many design and fabrication challenges.Optec Displays

"For example," McHugh said, "we were concerned with how we would wrap an LED videoscreen 720