Umeda Sky Building

#HotPlacesInJapan 🏙 Umeda Sky Building 👷 Designer: Hiroshi Hara 📍 Location: Osaka, Japan 📏 Height: Approximately 173m (40 floors) 🏗 Architectural Features ✅ Japan's first "connected skyscraper" Umeda Sky Building adopts a structure that connects the tops of two skyscrapers, realizing "integration of structure and form". It has created a new style in architectural design. ✅ "Circular cathedral space" that continues into the sky The circular "sky garden observatory" that spreads about 150m above the ground creates a magnificent space that connects the sky and the ground, creating a visual effect that stretches into the sky. ✅ "Reflection of the sky" by glass curtain walls The building's facade reflects the sky, and the huge circular ceiling spreads out in all directions, creating a fantastic landscape as if the "sky garden melts into the sky". ✅ "Sky Corridor" Connecting the Two Buildings The 22nd floor has a "sky corridor" that not only serves as a means of transportation between the two buildings, but also plays a role in supporting the structural balance of the entire building. 🔧 Innovative structural design The greatest feature of Umeda Sky Building is its unique structural system. 🏗 Mechanical role of the sky garden • The "sky garden" has the function of transferring load between the two buildings, suppressing the swaying of the short sides of the two buildings, the east and west, which have a large height-to-width ratio. 🏗 Arch-shaped sky corridor • The sky corridor uses an arch-shaped truss structure, with one end fixed and the other end supported by rollers, absorbing the relative displacement between the buildings while performing a connecting function. 🏛 Global recognition Hiroshi Hara attracted attention in the 1960s as one of Japan's leading architects, along with Arata Isozaki and Kisho Kurokawa. • While Isozaki and Kurokawa made their name with large-scale public buildings, Hiroshi Hara explored **"new expressions of residential space."** • He attempted to **"reconstruct the principles of modernist architecture with a rational approach."** 📰 Selected as one of the TOP 20 World Architecture by The Times Umeda Sky Building was selected as one of the **"TOP 20 World Architecture" alongside the Parthenon (Greece), the Taj Mahal (India), and the Sagrada Familia (Spain). It can truly be called a "masterpiece of Japanese architecture."** 📸 Futuristic design × Historical recognition Umeda Sky Building continues to fascinate visitors as a timeless architectural masterpiece.