Sendai International Center

An international conference and exhibition complex on Aobayama hill in Aoba Ward, Sendai. The exhibition hall was completed in January 2015 and immediately hosted the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) in March 2015, where the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 was adopted.

Use

Office tower

Area

Aoba Ward, Sendai

Completed

2015

Developer

City of Sendai

A Conference Hall That Named a Global Framework

The Sendai International Center occupies a wooded site on Aobayama hill in Aoba Ward, adjacent to the east side of Sendai Castle ruins (Aoba Castle) Park. The complex comprises an older conference wing and a newer exhibition hall; the exhibition hall was completed on 26 December 2014, with an inauguration ceremony held on 28 January 2015.

Barely weeks after that ceremony, the venue took centre stage in global affairs. In March 2015, Sendai hosted the Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR), the largest intergovernmental conference on disaster risk ever held at the time. Government delegations from 185 countries and territories gathered alongside civil-society groups, academic institutions, and NGOs to negotiate the successor framework to the Hyogo Framework for Action. The document adopted there, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, bore the name of the city still rebuilding from the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake — a location chosen deliberately to anchor the global agenda in lived experience of disaster and recovery.

Exhibition Space and the City of Trees

The exhibition hall provides roughly 3,000 square metres of floor space for trade shows, cultural exhibitions, and academic poster sessions. Used in combination with the conference wing, the facility can host a full MICE programme under one roof: plenary sessions, breakout rooms, an exhibition area, and hospitality spaces. The landscaped grounds and the zelkova-lined boulevard of Jōzenji Street nearby give visiting delegates an immediate sense of Sendai’s identity as the City of Trees (Mori no Miyako).

Sendai has actively pursued international academic and business conferences, drawing on its concentration of universities and research institutes in the greater Miyagi region. The International Center’s setting, overlooking the wooded hillside above the city, is as much a draw as its facilities.

Summary

Sendai International Center’s exhibition hall, completed in January 2015 with approximately 3,000 square metres of exhibition space, was quickly put on the world map when it hosted the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction the following March, with the Sendai Framework adopted as its main outcome. The venue continues to serve as the city’s flagship convention facility in one of Tohoku’s most distinctive urban settings. Accommodation options in Sendai can be searched at Rakuten Travel.