Japan is filled with buildings — many of them are impressive. One Osaka building, however, stands apart. It’s not because it’s particularly tall or even that beautiful. It has a highway passing through it.
This is the TKP Gate Tower Building, and it’s a structure that blew my mind well over a decade ago when I saw it for the first time after moving to Japan. This isn’t a new building, and it’s quite well known inside Japan and even abroad.
Recently, though, the building has once again become a topic on 2ch, Japan’s largest internet forum. A couple 2ch commenters remarked how they’d neither seen or visited it. Others wondered if it was safe during an earthquake or worse, a terrorist attack.
Today, the 16-storey building houses conference rooms for business meetings and presentations, save for the 5th to the 7th floors, which are occupied by the Hanshin Expressway Company.
Elevators, however, pass up the side of the building to the upper floors, and the highway doesn’t make contact with the building itself. Instead, it passes through the building via a bridge.
The building’s original owners decided to create the structure as the Hanshin Expressway was being planned, and ultimately negotiated to erect this unusual building, which is the first of its kind in Japan. And yes, that’s a helipad on the roof.
大阪にある 「高速道路が貫通するビル」 凄すぎワロタｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗ [2ch]
Photos: VENTILERSP, rockshallow, Wiki, zou_da_zou, 「箱庭いじり」, 節電対策で頑張るおじさん！！, ナミ
Comments
14 responses to “One Of Japan’s Most Amazing Buildings”
the way that tunnel is smoothly chamfered reminds me of all my old school japanese figures (like macross and gundam). getting a nice japanese vibe just from looking at it!
To me it looks very Shinkansen! Like it’s meant to hug the shape of a bullet train going through it 🙂
Would make the daily commute easy.
A friend and I were in Japan last year and were geeking out over the Gate Tower Building when we were in Osaka. Lol This time last year would have been our last day in Osaka. Then we went to Tokyo for more drinking, gaming and TGS.. Oh man, I wish I was back there this year… :'( sniff, ahh memories!
Wouldn’t it be kind of loud having things drive right through your building?
I’m sure that when the building was designed, they took this into account and put in some measure to mitigate sound.
If it was horrible, they wouldn’t get anyone wanting to use the building.
Does that second last picture look like something from thunderbirds to anyone else? almost like its a model/toy?
Might have to go take a look at this when im in Japan in January, very cool design.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiltshift
ahhhh very cool, thanks for the link
No probs, you’re one of today’s lucky 10,000 😉 http://xkcd.com/1053/
Also, on Thunderbirds, I was up early last Saturday and saw it was on TV while I was eating breakfast. Man, it was both fantastic [from my nostalgic, childlike point-of-view], and also horrifying [from my holy crap they were misogynistic arseholes in the 60’s point-of-view].
I still love the show. But I’m glad we can now watch it and see how intrinsic sexism was in society not so long ago, and see that it’s subltety made it so much worse.
But yes, ahem. Anyway…. haven’t spoken to anyone since then so wanted to get that off my chest, haha.
hahahaha love me some xkcd.
yeah i’ve been watching a lot of the original twilight zone, same feel with a lot of the references in that show, from the same era so makes sense i guess.
That gif looks like Ridge Racer. 🙂
King’s Way goes through the middle of Crown Casino in Melbourne….
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Crown_Casino_Complex_and_King_Street_Bridge.jpg
I know it doesn’t look as impressive, but it’s what I thought of when I saw this article 😉
Came here to say this. Kings Street is 4 lanes going through a Casino whereas this article features a single lane going through another building. I’m hardly blown away…
I think the building in the article illustrates it better mainly. You can see the building rise up from the bottom, then the road goes through it somewhat in the middle of the building. You can identify a building, and a hole cut in it.
In the casino example, unless you’ve actually seen it, you could be mistaken for thinking the casino simply goes over the road [as it’s not particularly high up].