Abeno Harukas

Opened on 7 March 2014, Abeno Harukas stands 300 metres tall across 60 storeys above ground — Japan's tallest building at the time of completion. A Kintetsu department store, art museum, offices, Osaka Marriott Miyako Hotel and the Harukas 300 observation deck are integrated into a single tower directly above Osaka Abenobashi station.

Use

Office tower

Area

Naniwa Ward, Osaka

Completed

2014

Floors

60 above ground, 5 below

Height

300 m

Total floor area

approx. 306,000 m²

Developer

Kintetsu Corporation

Architect

Takenaka Corporation (facade design supervision: Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects)

Three Hundred Metres Above Abeno

Directly above the terminus of Kintetsu’s Osaka Abenobashi station in Abeno Ward, Osaka, Abeno Harukas opened in full on 7 March 2014. The building reaches 300 metres across 60 storeys above ground and five below, with a total floor area of approximately 306,000 square metres. Kintetsu Corporation developed it as a large-scale replacement for an earlier terminal building on the same site; Takenaka Corporation handled design and construction, with facade design supervision by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects of the United States. At the time of its completion it was the tallest building in Japan.

The name “Harukas” derives from an archaic Japanese word meaning to clear the sky or to brighten — a reference to the panoramic views from its upper floors. The formal name of the building is Abenobashi Terminal Building (Tower Wing); Abeno Harukas is the brand name under which it is universally known.

A Vertical City from Basement to Summit

What sets Abeno Harukas apart from a simple office tower is the breadth of uses stacked within it. The lower section — from basement level two up to the fourteenth floor — is occupied by the Abeno Harukas Kintetsu Main Store, one of the largest department store floor areas in Japan. Floor sixteen is given to the Abeno Harukas Art Museum, a gallery focused on modern and contemporary art that holds a changing programme of exhibitions throughout the year.

Above the museum, floors seventeen to thirty-six serve as office space. Floors thirty-eight to fifty-seven are taken by the Osaka Marriott Miyako Hotel, with guest rooms and banquet facilities. The building culminates at floors fifty-eight to sixty in the Harukas 300 observation deck, which looks out over the Osaka plain and Osaka Bay from approximately 300 metres above street level. The layered programme — retail, culture, offices, hotel, observation — makes the tower a compact cross-section of an entire city district compressed into a single vertical structure.

Summary

Abeno Harukas was completed in 2014: 60 storeys, 300 metres tall, with a total floor area of approximately 306,000 square metres. Stacking a major department store, art museum, office floors, a luxury hotel and a sky-high observation deck into one structure directly above a busy railway terminus, it represents an ambitious model of vertical mixed-use development rooted in the station-centred urbanism that defines much of Japanese city building.

Visitors to Osaka can reach Abeno Harukas directly from central Osaka by Kintetsu or Osaka Metro. For hotels in and around the Abeno district, Rakuten Travel offers a wide selection.