Atomic Bomb Dome

The Atomic Bomb Dome is a skeletal, jagged frame of reinforced concrete and exposed steel sitting directly beneath the hypocenter of the nineteen forty-five explosion. It stands because the blast force traveled almost vertically downward, sparing the central core of the former Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall while leveling everything around it. In the decades since, local officials chose to stabilize the ruins with steel bracing rather than clear them, leaving the twisted iron girders visible against the sky.