Osaka’s registered cityscape
The city keeps a register of the things that make Osaka look like Osaka. Most are free to walk past, and many are a few minutes from a station.
中央区
もと大阪市立博物館
Completed in Showa 6 (1931) as the headquarters building of the Army's 4th Division. After the end of the war it was requisitioned as a facility for the occupying forces. In Showa 23 (1948) it was handed back and became the Osaka City Police Headquarters, and later the prefectural police headquarters. Part of it opened as a museum in Showa 35 (1960), and the whole building opened two years later. It closed in Heisei 13 (2001), ahead of the opening of the Osaka Museum of History.
伏見町付近の街並み（青山ビル・伏見ビル）
Fushimimachi still has prewar buildings such as the Aoyama Building and the Fushimi Building, looking much as they did then. The Aoyama Building was put up in Taisho 10 (1921) as a Western-style residence, and the ivy covering the whole building changes with the seasons. The Fushimi Building was built in Taisho 12 (1923) as a hotel, and its exterior stands out for details such as its round decorative windows. Both are listed as national Registered Tangible Cultural Properties.
八軒家浜船着場跡の近くにある石畳の階段
This area was once a landing place called Watanabe no Tsu, and the starting point of the Kumano Kaido road. From the middle of the Heian period into the Kamakura period the pilgrimage to Kumano was so busy that it was likened to a line of ants, and people are said to have come ashore here to set out for Kumano. In the Edo period it was known as Hachikenya-hama, where the sanjikkoku riverboats tied up, and it was busy as a place of trade as well as a place people passed through.
南海ビル（難波駅・髙島屋）
Around the time Midosuji was being built, the fourth Nankai Namba Station was completed in Showa 7 (1932) as the gateway to the Minami district. It still works as Minami's terminal today. The outer walls are covered entirely in terracotta, and the facade stands out for its run of semicircular arches and its columns with classical ornament. The terminal building had heating and cooling from the start, and Takashimaya, a tenant from those days, still trades here. Terracotta: unglazed fired earthenware.
原田産業（大阪本社ビル）
Completed in Showa 3 (1928). The design stands out for the clear contrast between the large square windows and the arched entrance. Through the windows you can see the stairway in the open atrium. It was designed and built as the head office of the trading company Harada Sangyo, and the company still uses it as its head office today.
大丸心斎橋店
In Taisho 14 (1925) the first and second phases of work completed the Shinsaibashi side, and a huge peacock relief was set above the central entrance facing Shinsaibashi-suji. In Showa 8 (1933), as Midosuji was widened, the Midosuji side was added, giving the building an exterior 100 shaku (about 30 m) high.
大阪倶楽部
The Osaka Club was founded by Osaka business leaders as a forward-looking social club for a city built on commerce. After the old building of the club burned down in Taisho 11 (1922), it was rebuilt in Taisho 13 (1924) to a design by Yasui Takeo. It is listed as a national Registered Tangible Cultural Property.
大阪府庁本館
Completed in Taisho 15 (1926). It is the oldest prefectural office building still in use in Japan. The design stands out for the stone and white artificial-stone tile used widely across the outer walls and for the flat roof with no pitch, and the porte-cochere at the main entrance carries distinctive ornament. The three-storey open entrance hall, with its marble floor and staircase, is used as a location for films and TV dramas.
御堂筋
Midosuji is the main street running north to south through central Osaka, and a symbol of the city with a handsome streetscape. It was completed in Showa 12 (1937). Buildings along it were limited to about 31 m in height, which produced an orderly streetscape. In Heisei 7 (1995) the limit was eased to an eaves height of 50 m and a maximum height of 60 m, on conditions such as setting walls back 4 m from the Midosuji frontage. The ginkgo trees along it are on the Osaka Midori no Hyakusen list of green places and are designated a cultural property by the City of Osaka.
愛珠幼稚園
Completed in Meiji 34 (1901). It is built in a palace-like style, unusual for a kindergarten. More than a hundred years on it is still in use, and it is the oldest wooden kindergarten building in Japan. The playroom is open to the roof. The ceiling is a coffered ceiling of the kind found in temples. Chandeliers from the time it was built still hang there. The building is designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan.
新井ビル
Built in Taisho 11 (1922) as the Osaka branch of Dai Nippon Hotoku Bank, it later became Arai Securities and then the Arai Building. The exterior is perfectly symmetrical, and its brown tiled walls sit comfortably in the street. It is listed as a national Registered Tangible Cultural Property.
旧小西家住宅
The former shop and house of Konishi Gisuke Shoten (now Konishi Co., Ltd.). It was finished in Meiji 36 (1903), partly three storeys. The west side was cut back when Sakaisuji was widened, and the third floor was later removed, leaving the building as it is now. It is one of the few surviving machiya townhouses in Semba, and stands out for its dozo-style exterior, which keeps the form of a medicine wholesaler. It is designated an Important Cultural Property. The interior is not open to the public.
法善寺水かけ不動尊
The west-facing Fudo Myoo of Hozenji temple. Wrapped in moss and turned a clean green, it is known affectionately as Mizukake Fudo, the Fudo you pour water over. The custom is said to have started when a worshipper who had brought no offering threw water over the statue and put their hands together.
浄土真宗本願寺派 本願寺津村別院（北御堂）
Osaka's beginnings go back to the temple town that formed around Honganji, but Honganji left Osaka after the Ishiyama war against Nobunaga. The followers who stayed set up a meeting hall in Tenma, and moved to this site in the town-block reform of Keicho 2 (1597). It later became Tsumura Betsuin. In Meiji 1 (1868) the Osaka garrison was stationed here, and the temple also served as a temporary imperial residence, visited by Emperor Meiji. The main hall was lost in the Osaka air raids and rebuilt in modern concrete in Showa 39 (1964).
生駒時計店（生駒ビルヂング）
Ikoma Clock Shop, founded in Meiji 3 (1870) at Koraibashi 5-chome, built this new building on its present site when Midosuji was widened and the subway was being dug. It was completed in Showa 5 (1930). The architect was So Hyozo. It is listed as a national Registered Tangible Cultural Property.
道修町の界隈・古い家屋
Doshomachi has many pharmaceutical companies. Since the Edo period the people of this area pooled money to set up private academies and schools for their children and apprentices, so that business and study went together. This neighbourhood escaped the wartime fires, and buildings carrying the signboards of long-established shops are still in use today.
道頓堀グリコネオン
Since the first Glico neon tower went up beside Ebisubashi in Showa 10 (1935), the design has been reworked, and the one you see now is the fifth. It is large, 20 m high and about 11 m wide, and shows the runner running through Osaka with Osaka Castle, Kaiyukan, the Osaka Dome and Tsutenkaku behind him. It lights up 30 minutes before sunset and goes dark at midnight, and the neon reflected on the water of the Dotonbori river is a sight in itself.
住之江区
住吉高燈籠
The Sumiyoshi Takatoro lantern tower is proof of the beautiful shoreline Suminoe once had, and is thought to have been built in the middle of the Edo period. As the shore nearby was reclaimed it ended up far from the sea, and by the end of the Taisho period it had finished its work as a lighthouse. In Showa 49 (1974) it was rebuilt on its present site in reinforced concrete, in its old shape.
南港オズ岸壁と大阪南港コスモフェリーターミナル
The Oz quay, part of the Asia Pacific Trade Center, is where passengers board the City of Osaka's sailing ship Akogare. To the northwest of it, the Osaka Nanko Ferry Terminal serves large ferries running to Ehime and Kitakyushu, and you can watch plenty of ships from here.
名村造船所大阪工場跡地
The site of the Namura Shipbuilding Osaka works, which began operating in Showa 6 (1931), keeps much of its old look and was fitted out in Heisei 16 (2004) as CCO (Creative Center Osaka), a mixed arts space that supports creative work. In Heisei 19 (2007) the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry recognised the site as a Modern Industrial Heritage, for its importance as a foundation stone of Japan as a manufacturing nation and as a root of its core industries.
地蔵尊のある風景（安立連合町会のなかの紀州街道沿いのお地蔵様）
The sight of jizo statues among the old streets is an important part of the landscape of Suminoe Ward. The local place name Anryu comes from Nakarai Anryu, a doctor of some fame who made his home here in the Genna era (1615 to 1623). Many people are said to have gathered here seeking his treatment, and in time a town formed.
住吉区
すみよし村ぎゃらりー
Sumiyoshi-mura Gallery, where you can get a feel for the history of Sumiyoshi, is a renovated old house along the Sumiyoshi Kaido road. It displays things connected with Sumiyoshi, such as the umbrellas used in the Sumiyoshi Odori dance and the workings of an old oil shop. It was built in the early Meiji period and is a machiya townhouse in the Yamato-mune style. It is also an unusual machiya in having a post for tying up horses.
上田家住宅
Built in Meiji 43 (1910), with a tiled gable roof and traditional machiya features such as projecting lattice windows and a komayose railing. It was repaired under the streetscape improvement grant scheme of the HOPE Zone project. It gives a sense of how the streets of Sumiyoshi used to look.
住吉子安地藏寺（すみよしのこやっさん）
Jizoji is a Tendai temple said to have been founded in Joo 3 (1654) by the monk Shoen. Its main image, a Jizo Bosatsu, is said to be the work of Dengyo Daishi, and local people call it Koyasu-san. It is a fine standing wooden Jizo Bosatsu of the Heian period and is designated a Tangible Cultural Property by the City of Osaka. There is a hyakudo-ishi stone in front of the gate and a Godairikison statue inside it.
吾彦山大聖観音寺（通称あびこ観音）
Its formal name is Abikosan, with the temple name Daisho Kannonji, and it is known as Japan's oldest place of Kannon worship and a temple for warding off misfortune. Long ago a powerful family called the Yosami no Abiko lived here and received from King Seimei of Baekje a small Kannon figure about 5 cm tall. People built a hall and worshipped it, and about 1,400 years ago, when Prince Shotoku visited the area, he is said to have received a revelation from Kannon and founded this temple.
大歳社
An outlying subsidiary shrine of Sumiyoshi Taisha, dedicated to Otoshi no Kami. As a god of the harvest, the deity is said to grant help with collecting money owed, prosperity in business, safety in the home and the granting of wishes. On the Hatsutatsu-mairi, made on the first Day of the Dragon of each month, worshippers visit Tanekashisha and Asazawa Shrine, and finish here by giving thanks for collections and the harvest. The round stone on top of the stone pillar to the right of the worship hall is called the omokaru-ishi.
大阪市立大学（杉本キャンパス）
The Sugimoto Campus, in the south of Osaka overlooking the Yamato River, is green and refreshing, and that is part of its appeal. Building No. 1 (completed in Showa 9, 1934), the symbol of the campus, is listed as a national Registered Tangible Cultural Property. The Academic Information Center at the middle of the site holds about 2.5 million volumes, including books of global rarity, and provides a comfortable setting for teaching and research. There is also a scheme that lets residents of the city use the library. Other buildings include the Tanaka Memorial Hall, which links an octagonal conference hall with exhibition rooms, and the Takahara Memorial Hall, where walls of recycled and clear glass blend with the trees.
宗教法人住吉大社
Its founding is said to go back to the story of Empress Jingu praying for safe passage on her voyage overseas. The four present main halls were built in Bunka 5 (1808) in the Sumiyoshi-zukuri style, with cypress-bark roofs and gabled entrances on the gable end, and they are the only National Treasure buildings in the city. In the grounds there is the vermilion arched bridge (Sorihashi), put up in Keicho 11 (1606) and a symbol of Sumiyoshi Taisha, along with Important Cultural Properties such as the stone stage, the south gate and the east and west gakusho, and more than 600 stone lanterns donated from all over Japan.
帝塚山スタジオ（市川家住宅）
Known as the Tezukayama Studio, home of the Ichikawa Keiko Flamenco Dance Institute. Because plaster walls and wood suit flamenco well, the storehouse has been reborn as a full flamenco studio. The upper floor of the main house is Western in style, and this mix of Japanese and Western is very unusual even in the Tezukayama area. The storehouse and the Japanese-Western build of the house give a sense of history and culture.
木下家住宅
A machiya townhouse standing along the Sumiyoshi Kaido road, built with thick plastered walls, with mushiko-mado lattice windows on the upper floor. The mushiko-mado are made by winding rough rope around square timbers and plastering them over with earth. There are various accounts of what they are for: they are said to be for fire protection and for the reassurance they give, and it is also said that they were devised to make the front of a two-storey house look handsome.
熊野街道（ＨＯＰＥゾーン内）
The Kumano Kaido is the pilgrimage road to Kumano Hongu in Wakayama Prefecture. From the Heian period into the Kamakura period it was so busy with travellers that the pilgrimage was likened to a line of ants. People came down the Yodo River by boat from Kyoto, landed at Hachikenya (Tenmabashi Kyomachi, Chuo Ward) and crossed the length of the Uemachi plateau, following the wayside worship points known as the Kumano Kujuku Oji (in Sumiyoshi Ward, the Tsumori Oji) until they reached the three grand shrines of Kumano.
苅田の大楠
The tutelary shrine of Karita is called Kusatsu Otoshi Shrine, and it used to stand where the Karita Welfare Hall is now. The Great Camphor of Karita, designated a preserved tree by the City of Osaka, is its sacred tree.
蔵のある住宅
Walk from Otoshi Shrine towards National Route 479 and you will see it straight away on your left, an unusual build with white plaster and board walls. The storehouse with its white plaster and boarding, an old kaizuka juniper and a house that mixes Japanese style with modern make a fine composition.
蔵のある屋敷町
The Tezukayama area has a district of large houses, and among the recent buildings there are still homes that carry the old Japanese way of living into the present. These storehouses have been here through the hundred years of housing development in Tezukayama. A white-walled storehouse standing tall in a well-kept property is a fine sight.
閻魔地蔵尊
This Jizo is said to be a Jizo that took the form of Enma, the king of the underworld. It was carried here on someone's back from the shore at Namba, but at this spot it suddenly grew heavy and could not be moved a step further. The crossroads of the six realms of suffering in the afterlife has gained one more road, and is now a crossroads of seven.
阪堺電気軌道住吉交差点
Two Hankai Electric Tramway lines, the Uemachi Line and the Hankai Line, cross each other here on the road. The Hankai tram is the only streetcar still running in the city of Osaka, and people call it the chin-den. The Uemachi Line began as a horse tramway, opened in Meiji 33 (1900), with horses pulling carriages along the track. Electrification was finished in Meiji 43 (1910) and services started between Tennoji Nishimon-mae and Sumiyoshi Jinja-mae. Apart from the Harimayabashi crossing in Kochi, Sumiyoshi is the only place left in Japan where one tram line crosses another.
ＷＩＬＬ帝塚山
Winner of an Encouragement Prize at the 22nd Osaka Machinami Award (Osaka Cityscape Architecture Award) in 2002. On a small, tight site it puts a gallery open to the neighbourhood on the corner, and gives residents a shared space around the old standing trees of the courtyard. By making use of the storehouse and garden stones handed down from the previous generation, it stands as a beautiful, comfortable and dignified presence in a residential area near a scenic district that could easily lose its character.
北区
お初天神（露天神社）
Tsuyunoten Shrine is said to have stood for 1,300 years since its founding, and its name Tsuyunoten is also traced to a poem composed by Sugawara no Michizane. It is generally called Ohatsu Tenjin, after Ohatsu, the courtesan in Chikamatsu Monzaemon's play The Love Suicides at Sonezaki. The shrine burned down in the war in Showa 20 (1945), the halls were rebuilt in Showa 32 (1957), and the repairs of Heisei 5 (1993) gave the grounds a fresh look.
ちゃやまちプロムナード
A promenade about 200 m long, lined with tall zelkova trees, northeast of Umeda Station. The landowners themselves agreed on what they wanted the area to become, and created it by setting their walls back at least 4 m on both sides of a narrow street. Part of it is lit up at night.
みおつくしプロムナード
A zelkova-lined path about 210 m long on the south side of City Hall, for cyclists and pedestrians only. It is also lit up at night for limited periods.
大阪府立中之島図書館
It opened in Meiji 37 (1904) as Osaka's first academic library, funded by a donation from Sumitomo Kichizaemon Tomoito. Noguchi Magoichi and Hidaka Yutaka designed it and Kubota Kozaburo built it. At first it was only the cross-shaped central block; the two wings were added in Taisho 11 (1922), again on a donation from the Sumitomo family, to a design by Hidaka Yutaka. It is designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan. An annex and other additions were also built on the east side, from before the war up to recent years.
天神橋筋商店街（2丁目）の看板
The sign at the entrance to Tenjinbashisuji Shopping Street (2-chome). Its motif is the omukai ningyo, the dolls that welcome the deities at the Tenjin Matsuri. There are two of them, one on the north side of the crossing and one on the south.
扇町キッズパーク（関西テレビ放送）
Completed in Heisei 9 (1997). It was built as a mixed cultural facility under a city land trust scheme. It is now the headquarters of Kansai Telecasting, with tenants including Kids Plaza Osaka. It has 13 floors above ground, stands next to Ogimachi Park, and is faced in mirror glass.
菅原町の土蔵
The year it was finished is not known. It is thought to have been built in the Taisho period as the storehouse of a dried-goods wholesaler. Parts of other storehouses from that time survive nearby and are used as warehouses and offices.
造幣局桜の通り抜け
The Mint began work in April of Meiji 4 (1871). The tunnel of cherry blossom, the toarinuke or walk-through, started in Meiji 16 (1883), and the 560 m path along the Okawa inside the Mint grounds is opened to the public for one week. There are now more than 340 trees of more than 120 varieties, most of them late-flowering double cherries.
道引地蔵尊
Built in Meiji 24 (1891). The Jizo stands in a small hall of about four and a half tatami mats, and draws the faith of local people.
城東区
中浜下水処理場の桜
Nakahama Sewage Treatment Plant was Osaka's third treatment plant and began operating in Showa 35. Around the Nakahama Seseragi no Sato laid out on the site, about 300 cherry trees make a fine tunnel of blossom every spring, a pleasure for many people.
城北川新光製糖の艀
Shinko Sugar Refining makes and sells refined sugar, rock sugar and liquid sugar. It was set up in Shigino-cho, Joto Ward, in Showa 19 (1944), built the Imafuku plant in Showa 27 (1952), and moved its head office to Imafuku in Showa 29 (1954). With its head office in Osaka, once known as the city of water, the company has made the most of its location and has carried goods by barge, which puts out less CO2, for more than fifty years.
大阪信愛女学院
The school's history starts in Meiji 17 (1884), when it opened in the Kawaguchi foreign settlement. The main building was put up when the school moved to its present site in Furuichi, Joto Ward (then Sembayashi-cho, Higashinari Ward), and part of it is still used as junior high school classrooms in a school that now runs from kindergarten to junior college. (Opened: Showa 7, 1932.) The chapel won the Mayor of Osaka Prize at the 25th Osaka Machinami Award (Osaka Cityscape Architecture Award) in 2005: the altar is placed to make use of the street corner, and the outer wall is set back to make a green space and a water basin that join up with the street, a deliberate response to the surroundings.
諏訪2丁目の大いちょう
A preserved tree designated by the City of Osaka on 1 October Showa 43 (1968), it reaches 16.5 m in height and 3.3 m around the trunk. It stands on private land, but it is tall enough to be seen from a distance, and in the leaf-fall season the road turns beautiful, as if spread with a yellow carpet. Judging by the girth of the trunk it must be a good age, and it is a symbol of this part of the ward.
野崎街道の家並み
The Nozaki Kaido is the route for pilgrims heading to Jigenji on Mount Fukuju, a Soto Zen temple in Nozaki, Daito City, known as Nozaki no Kannon-san. The Nozaki pilgrimage began in the Enpo (1673 to 1681) and Genroku (1688 to 1704) years of the late 17th century, and until the end of the Meiji period the road was busy with people from the town of Osaka and nearby villages who came to worship and to enjoy the outing. Old traditional houses are still dotted along the former road, keeping something of the look of a highway town.
野江水流地蔵尊
The story goes that this Jizo drifted here in the great flood of Meiji 18, an unprecedented one that struck the whole northern part of Osaka. It is treated as a witness to an event the people of Joto Ward must not forget, and one to be looked after and passed on. The local neighbourhood association cares for it, and events such as Jizo-bon are held every year without fail.
関目2丁目・4丁目の楠並木
Camphor trees line the road in Sekime 2-chome and 4-chome. The row runs a little over 100 m, the trees stand about 10 m tall, their branches spread well and they are kept in good order, making a space that soothes. It is a valuable patch of shade where you can catch a light breeze on a midsummer afternoon.
大正区
千島公園（昭和山）
Chishima Park opened in April Showa 51 (1976) and covers about 11.2 hectares, the main comprehensive park of the ward. Showayama inside the park is an artificial hill raised in the Showa period, modelled on Tenpozan, which was made in the Edo period. Camphor and zelkova grow thick here, azalea, kerria, gardenia and Japanese andromeda flower, and it is a symbol of Taisho Ward.
千歳橋と千歳渡船場
The Chitose ferry links Tsurumachi 4-chome and Kitaokajima 2-chome, both in Taisho Ward, a crossing of 371 m between the quays. From the Tsurumachi side you can see Showayama (33 m above sea level) and the Chishima housing estate beyond the many boats in Taisho Inner Harbour, and together with the wide river mouth of the Shirinashi River it makes a handsome waterfront view. In April Heisei 15 the Chitose Bridge was completed above the crossing, 365 m long and 28 m above the water, and it has become a new landmark for Taisho Ward.
大正内港のはしけ桟橋
From the middle of the Taisho period into the early Showa years, canals, timber ponds and waterways were dug and roads, bridges and raised building land were laid out across the Chishima Shinden and Izuo Shinden areas, and timber businesses were brought in. By around Showa 7 and 8 (1932 and 1933) a timber district of some 600 businesses had appeared, and its timber market became a major centre for the trade. In Showa 50 (1975) the Taisho Inner Harbour barge pier, the basis of what stands today, was built, and it keeps a faint trace of those days. Laid out after the timber ponds moved away, the pier with its many moored vessels makes a scene that looks the part of a port.
大正区の渡船場の景観
Taisho Ward is surrounded on all sides by rivers and the sea, and even now that bridges are in place, the ferries still do vital work as a way for residents to get about. Seven of the eight ferry crossings in the city are in Taisho Ward, and the sight of them sets you thinking about the city of water and gives a strong sense of its history. Jinbee ferry crossing: links Izuo 7-chome in Taisho Ward with Fukuzaki 1-chome in Minato Ward (94 metres between the quays).
大正区の渡船場の景観
Taisho Ward is surrounded on all sides by rivers and the sea, and even now that bridges are in place, the ferries still do vital work as a way for residents to get about. Seven of the eight ferry crossings in the city are in Taisho Ward, and the sight of them sets you thinking about the city of water and gives a strong sense of its history. Ochiai Kami ferry crossing: links Chishima 1-chome in Taisho Ward with Kitatsumori 4-chome in Nishinari Ward (100 metres between the quays).
大正区の渡船場の景観
Taisho Ward is surrounded on all sides by rivers and the sea, and even now that bridges are in place, the ferries still do vital work as a way for residents to get about. Seven of the eight ferry crossings in the city are in Taisho Ward, and the sight of them sets you thinking about the city of water and gives a strong sense of its history. Ochiai Shimo ferry crossing: links Hirao 1-chome in Taisho Ward with Tsumori 2-chome in Nishinari Ward (138 metres between the quays).
大正区の渡船場の景観
Taisho Ward is surrounded on all sides by rivers and the sea, and even now that bridges are in place, the ferries still do vital work as a way for residents to get about. Seven of the eight ferry crossings in the city are in Taisho Ward, and the sight of them sets you thinking about the city of water and gives a strong sense of its history. Senbonmatsu ferry crossing: links Minamiokajima 1-chome in Taisho Ward with Minamitsumori 5-chome in Nishinari Ward (230 metres between the quays).
大正区の渡船場の景観
Taisho Ward is surrounded on all sides by rivers and the sea, and even now that bridges are in place, the ferries still do vital work as a way for residents to get about. Seven of the eight ferry crossings in the city are in Taisho Ward, and the sight of them sets you thinking about the city of water and gives a strong sense of its history. Chitose ferry crossing: links Tsurumachi 3-chome with Kitaokajima 2-chome, both in Taisho Ward (371 metres between the quays).
大正区の渡船場の景観
Taisho Ward is surrounded on all sides by rivers and the sea, and even now that the bridges are in place, the ferries still do the job of a vital everyday link for the people who live here. Seven of the eight ferry crossings in the city are in Taisho Ward, and the view from them calls up the old water city and carries a deep sense of history. Funamachi ferry landing: it links Tsurumachi 1-chome in Taisho Ward with Funamachi 1-chome in the same ward (75 meters between the quays).
大正区の渡船場の景観
Taisho Ward is surrounded on all sides by rivers and the sea, and even now that the bridges are in place, the ferries still do the job of a vital everyday link for the people who live here. Seven of the eight ferry crossings in the city are in Taisho Ward, and the view from them calls up the old water city and carries a deep sense of history. Kizugawa ferry landing: it links Funamachi 1-chome in Taisho Ward with Hirabayashi-kita 1-chome in Suminoe Ward (238 meters between the quays).
木津川水門
The Kizugawa Water Gate is an arch-shaped gate on the Kizugawa River, whose banks are lined with shipyards and similar works. It was put up in November of Showa 45 (1970) to hold back the storm surges that typhoons and the like push in from Osaka Bay. It is made up of a main gate with an arch-shaped door and a secondary gate with a swing-type door; the main gate spans 57 m and the secondary gate 15 m. Both are painted green, which makes for a striking landmark on the water.
天王寺区
U氏邸
Generous planting sets off the exposed concrete exterior. It was built in Showa 43 (1968) as an early example of a city house that puts work and living under one roof. The green-covered facade has grown richer with the years. It was designed by the architect Fumitaka Nishizawa, who had a large influence on modern Japanese architecture. In Heisei 19 (2007) it took the grand prize at the first Rooftop Development Kansai Sakigake Award, run by the Osaka branch of the NPO Rooftop Development Research Association.
一心寺三千佛堂
It was built in May of Heisei 14 (2002) as a lecture hall for the men and women who come to worship at Isshin-ji. Inside, along the great corridor, a thousand Buddha images, the Sentai Butsu, are to be carved and enshrined one after another over the course of the 21st century.
伝藤原家隆墓
Fujiwara no Ietaka (1158 to 1237) was a well-known poet who served five emperors at the end of the Fujiwara period. At 79 he gave up his post and retired to the grounds of Joshun-ji. At the spring equinox of the next year he watched from the high ground as the sun went down into the sea to the west, was struck by how solemn it was, shaved his head on the spot and took the name Bussho, and on April 9 of that year his life came to an end as if he were quietly fading away. This tomb is said to be Ietaka's grave, and beside it stands a granite poem monument with his poem carved on it together with a setting sun. The place name Yuhigaoka comes from the words 'nami no irihi', the sun setting into the waves, in that poem.
四天王寺西門前の参道
This is the stone-paved approach in front of the west gate of Shitenno-ji. The stone torii standing on the approach before the west gate is designated a national Important Cultural Property. Shops and street stalls line the way from the stone torii to the west gate. In Pure Land belief the west gate of Shitenno-ji is a special place, the holy ground for nissokan, the meditation on the setting sun, and from the Heian period on it drew deep faith from people of every class. The stone torii is the symbol of that, a structure that serves as the entrance from this world to the Pure Land of the west. The approach itself has been laid out under a City of Osaka landscaping project, with the aim of giving it the life and atmosphere that suit an approach to Shitenno-ji.
大正湯の煙突
It stands in a quiet residential area, reached by turning north off the road on the east side of Yuhigaoka High School. The design (Showa 56 (1981)) makes good use of a narrow space to give it a feeling of openness and texture.
大阪ガス 実験集合住宅 ＮＥＸＴ21
This is an experimental apartment building put up by Osaka Gas Co., Ltd. in October of Heisei 5 (1993), on the theme of 'a life with room to breathe, energy saving and protecting the environment, all at once', to propose what a near-future city apartment building could be. Since completion, three rounds of five-year live-in trials have been run, starting in April of Heisei 6 (1994), April of Heisei 12 (2000) and April of Heisei 19 (2007), 15 years in all, each with a theme set to look ahead to its time, with Osaka Gas employees and their families actually living in the building. From June of Heisei 25 (2013) a fourth phase has been under way on the theme of 'an environmentally friendly life that is rich in spirit', which treats creating connections between people, rebuilding the relationship between people and nature, and achieving energy-saving smart living as the requirements to be met, and runs trials in the two fields of housing and energy systems to give them shape. Many trees have been planted around it, and it is a building that people living nearby are fond of.
大阪市立大江幼稚園
It opened on July 17 of Showa 5 (1930). In Heisei 22 (2010) it marked its 80th anniversary. The building came through the war and other disasters, and as a single-story wooden building with a tiled roof it still carries the weight of its history and tradition, and a sense of old times. In the grounds there are trees such as cherry and wisteria along with fruit trees like grape, mandarin and peach, and the flower beds bloom through the four seasons.
天王寺七坂（口縄坂）
In the area running north to south from Tanimachi 9-chome to the west gate of Shitenno-ji, and east to west from Tanimachi-suji to Matsuyamachi-suji, there are many temples and shrines. Some slopes took their names from them, others from the shape of the slope itself, and the seven of them together are called the Tennoji Nanazaka, the seven slopes of Tennoji. At the top of Kuchinawa-zaka stands a literary monument to the writer Sakunosuke Oda, and to the southeast of the Koen-kitaguchi crossing, where Matsuyamachi-suji meets Osaka-zaka, there is an old stone signpost, all of which together with the slopes makes up a historic streetscape.
天王寺七坂（天神坂）
In the area running north to south from Tanimachi 9-chome to the west gate of Shitenno-ji, and east to west from Tanimachi-suji to Matsuyamachi-suji, there are many temples and shrines. Some slopes took their names from them, others from the shape of the slope itself, and the seven of them together are called the Tennoji Nanazaka, the seven slopes of Tennoji. At the top of Kuchinawa-zaka stands a literary monument to the writer Sakunosuke Oda, and to the southeast of the Koen-kitaguchi crossing, where Matsuyamachi-suji meets Osaka-zaka, there is an old stone signpost, all of which together with the slopes makes up a historic streetscape.
天王寺七坂（清水坂）
In the area running north to south from Tanimachi 9-chome to the west gate of Shitenno-ji, and east to west from Tanimachi-suji to Matsuyamachi-suji, there are many temples and shrines. Some slopes took their names from them, others from the shape of the slope itself, and the seven of them together are called the Tennoji Nanazaka, the seven slopes of Tennoji. At the top of Kuchinawa-zaka stands a literary monument to the writer Sakunosuke Oda, and to the southeast of the Koen-kitaguchi crossing, where Matsuyamachi-suji meets Osaka-zaka, there is an old stone signpost, all of which together with the slopes makes up a historic streetscape.
学園坂
The slope that runs from Shitadera-machi and Matsuyamachi-suji in Tennoji Ward through to Rokumantai on Tanimachi-suji is a big slope that cuts across the middle of the Uemachi plateau from north to south. It was made by cutting open what had been a small path and turning it into a road for cars. Later Osaka Joshi Gakuen (now Osaka Yuhigaoka Gakuen) was built along it, and it came to be called Gakuen-zaka, the school slope.
真田山公園前の道
The sloping road on the north side of Sanadayama Park turns west off the road between Sanadayama-cho and Tamatsukuri-honmachi and runs about 330 m to the front of Dencho-ji in Esashimachi. The land where Sanadayama Park now stands was once the base of the Fourth Cavalry Regiment; the regiment moved out in Showa 7 (1932) and the site became a park. The sloping road on the north side of the park was also laid out after the cavalry left. This stone-paved road was built in Showa 59 to 60 (1984 to 1985) under a slope-road program that creates walking routes where you can enjoy the cultural heritage and the valuable historic sites dotted across the Uemachi plateau.
総本山四天王寺
Shitenno-ji is the oldest state-founded temple in Japan, built by Prince Shotoku in the first year of Empress Suiko (593). Its halls stand in a single line from north to south, an arrangement known as the Shitennoji style. It has been hit by fire and disaster many times, but the stone torii at the west gate, and the Rokujido, Gochikoin and Honbo Hojo halls rebuilt in Genna 9 (1623), are designated Important Cultural Properties, and the central complex of halls was rebuilt in reinforced concrete, finished in Showa 38 (1963).
總本家釣鐘屋
In Meiji 33 (1900) local supporters donated a large temple bell to Shitenno-ji, and it was talked about as a fine deed that showed the spirit of Osaka's merchants. To mark the donation, a manju bun shaped like a hanging bell was put on sale in front of the temple gate, and that was the beginning of tsurigane manju. The retro look of the shop, with a bell fitted to its roof, gives you a sense of a business that has kept going for more than 100 years.
超願寺（竹本義太夫の墓）
Takemoto Gidayu is said to be the founder of gidayu-bushi joruri chanting. He was born in Keian 4 (1651) near here; a monument marking his birthplace stands on the street about 100 m south of Horikoshi Shrine. From his youth he was a keen student, picking up everything from short songs and popular ballads to the calls of street vendors and storing it up for the future. He then trained in Kyoto and Osaka, went independent in Enpo 5 (1677), took on Chikamatsu Monzaemon as his writer, and with master shamisen and puppet performers and backers on the money side, scored a great hit with 'Sonezaki Shinju'. His grave is in the grounds of Chogan-ji, kept safe from wind and rain by a hall built over it.
鶴橋駅周辺の焼肉店の多い街並み
Tennoji Ward has the Tsuruhashi Nishi shopping street, which has gained so many yakiniku restaurants over the past few years that it is called Yakiniku Square. Grilled meat restaurants and shops selling kimchi and other ingredients stand side by side along it, and because the savory smell of grilling meat and the distinctive smell of kimchi drift over a wide area, the street has been chosen for the Ministry of the Environment's 100 Fragrances list.
齢延寺
Founded as a Soto Zen temple on Sanadayama in Genna 6 (1620) by the monk Gishun, and moved to its present site in Genna 9 (1623). It was also the family temple of the Inaba, lords of Shima province. In the Edo period it was known for its cherry blossom, called the Reienji higan-zakura, and it is still a temple of some dignity, with many old trees and old graves. The graveyard holds Fujisawa Togai and his son Nangaku, Confucian scholars who opened the Hakuen Shoin school late in the Edo period, the painter Nabei Katsuyuki, and the swordsmith Sa Yukihide.
平野区
八坂神社と椋の木
This was the tutelary shrine of Higashi-Kire village, where Susanoo no Mikoto was enshrined and which was called Yasaka Shrine. In the Kaei era it took in Hime Tenjin, which enshrines Oshisaka no Onakatsuhime no Mikoto, the empress of Emperor Ingyo, and became Tozai Shrine. The new name took the two characters for east and west because the merger meant its parishioners now spanned the east and west Kire villages. In Meiji 42 the three shrines of Tenjin, Tozai and Kasuga were merged into what is now Tatehara Shrine, but on a decision by the parishioners it became Yasaka Shrine again. In Showa 26, at the request of the Higashi-Kire parishioners, the Tozai and Kasuga shrines were separated off and moved back to Higashi-Kire, and at the same time the local parishioners split as well. In the grounds stands a muku tree, a big tree measuring a little over 4 m around the trunk at its base.
喜連環濠地区の6つの地蔵尊（北口、尻矢口、西口、馬倉、東口、南口）
From long ago, Jizo statues have been enshrined at the six entrances to the Kire moated village. Starting from the Bakura Jizo, whose name means the ground in front of the main gate at the southern entrance of the moat on the Naka-Koya Kaido road, and going counterclockwise, there is the solidly built Higashiguchi Jizo, with an Ansei-era stone monument standing beside it; the Shiriyaguchi Jizo, which is given a Kansei-era offering tray at the Jizo Bon festival (the name looks to mean the point where the defenses at the rear were strengthened); the Kitaguchi Jizo, which has a fine Jizo hall as the northern gateway on the Naka-Koya Kaido, and where the remains of Matsuyama Bridge, which once spanned the moat, are still there; the Nishiguchi Jizo, which has a kubi-jizo, a head-only Jizo with some story behind it, enshrined to the left of the main image; and the Minamiguchi Jizo, with a line-carved Jizo at its side that carries the feel of medieval times.
喜連環濠地区の6つの地蔵尊（北口、尻矢口、西口、馬倉、東口、南口）
From long ago, Jizo statues have been enshrined at the six entrances to the Kire moated village. Starting from the Bakura Jizo, whose name means the ground in front of the main gate at the southern entrance of the moat on the Naka-Koya Kaido road, and going counterclockwise, there is the solidly built Higashiguchi Jizo, with an Ansei-era stone monument standing beside it; the Shiriyaguchi Jizo, which is given a Kansei-era offering tray at the Jizo Bon festival (the name looks to mean the point where the defenses at the rear were strengthened); the Kitaguchi Jizo, which has a fine Jizo hall as the northern gateway on the Naka-Koya Kaido, and where the remains of Matsuyama Bridge, which once spanned the moat, are still there; the Nishiguchi Jizo, which has a kubi-jizo, a head-only Jizo with some story behind it, enshrined to the left of the main image; and the Minamiguchi Jizo, with a line-carved Jizo at its side that carries the feel of medieval times. The positions and the names of the six Jizo bring out the outer defenses of medieval Kire Castle. The Jizo also stand on the sites of the village checkpoints, which fought in peasant uprisings in the years of war. Once the fighting stopped, they watched over the people going out to the fields from the entrances of the village, and settled into daily life as guardians of the Kire moated village. In time they became Buddhas who protect children, and they are the setting for the Jizo Bon on August 23 and 24 every year, a feature of summer that children still enjoy today. The Jizo have been looked after for hundreds of years by the warm goodwill of the people living around them.
喜連環濠地区の6つの地蔵尊（北口、尻矢口、西口、馬倉、東口、南口）
From long ago, Jizo statues have been enshrined at the six entrances to the Kire moated village. Starting from the Bakura Jizo, whose name means the ground in front of the main gate at the southern entrance of the moat on the Naka-Koya Kaido road, and going counterclockwise, there is the solidly built Higashiguchi Jizo, with an Ansei-era stone monument standing beside it; the Shiriyaguchi Jizo, which is given a Kansei-era offering tray at the Jizo Bon festival (the name looks to mean the point where the defenses at the rear were strengthened); the Kitaguchi Jizo, which has a fine Jizo hall as the northern gateway on the Naka-Koya Kaido, and where the remains of Matsuyama Bridge, which once spanned the moat, are still there; the Nishiguchi Jizo, which has a kubi-jizo, a head-only Jizo with some story behind it, enshrined to the left of the main image; and the Minamiguchi Jizo, with a line-carved Jizo at its side that carries the feel of medieval times. The positions and the names of the six Jizo bring out the outer defenses of medieval Kire Castle. The Jizo also stand on the sites of the village checkpoints, which fought in peasant uprisings in the years of war. Once the fighting stopped, they watched over the people going out to the fields from the entrances of the village, and settled into daily life as guardians of the Kire moated village. In time they became Buddhas who protect children, and they are the setting for the Jizo Bon on August 23 and 24 every year, a feature of summer that children still enjoy today. The Jizo have been looked after for hundreds of years by the warm goodwill of the people living around them.
喜連環濠地区の6つの地蔵尊（北口、尻矢口、西口、馬倉、東口、南口）
From long ago, Jizo statues have been enshrined at the six entrances to the Kire moated village. Starting from the Bakura Jizo, whose name means the ground in front of the main gate at the southern entrance of the moat on the Naka-Koya Kaido road, and going counterclockwise, there is the solidly built Higashiguchi Jizo, with an Ansei-era stone monument standing beside it; the Shiriyaguchi Jizo, which is given a Kansei-era offering tray at the Jizo Bon festival (the name looks to mean the point where the defenses at the rear were strengthened); the Kitaguchi Jizo, which has a fine Jizo hall as the northern gateway on the Naka-Koya Kaido, and where the remains of Matsuyama Bridge, which once spanned the moat, are still there; the Nishiguchi Jizo, which has a kubi-jizo, a head-only Jizo with some story behind it, enshrined to the left of the main image; and the Minamiguchi Jizo, with a line-carved Jizo at its side that carries the feel of medieval times. The positions and the names of the six Jizo bring out the outer defenses of medieval Kire Castle. The Jizo also stand on the sites of the village checkpoints, which fought in peasant uprisings in the years of war. Once the fighting stopped, they watched over the people going out to the fields from the entrances of the village, and settled into daily life as guardians of the Kire moated village. In time they became Buddhas who protect children, and they are the setting for the Jizo Bon on August 23 and 24 every year, a feature of summer that children still enjoy today. The Jizo have been looked after for hundreds of years by the warm goodwill of the people living around them.
喜連環濠地区の6つの地蔵尊（北口、尻矢口、西口、馬倉、東口、南口）
From long ago, Jizo statues have been enshrined at the six entrances to the Kire moated village. Starting from the Bakura Jizo, whose name means the ground in front of the main gate at the southern entrance of the moat on the Naka-Koya Kaido road, and going counterclockwise, there is the solidly built Higashiguchi Jizo, with an Ansei-era stone monument standing beside it; the Shiriyaguchi Jizo, which is given a Kansei-era offering tray at the Jizo Bon festival (the name looks to mean the point where the defenses at the rear were strengthened); the Kitaguchi Jizo, which has a fine Jizo hall as the northern gateway on the Naka-Koya Kaido, and where the remains of Matsuyama Bridge, which once spanned the moat, are still there; the Nishiguchi Jizo, which has a kubi-jizo, a head-only Jizo with some story behind it, enshrined to the left of the main image; and the Minamiguchi Jizo, with a line-carved Jizo at its side that carries the feel of medieval times. The positions and the names of the six Jizo bring out the outer defenses of medieval Kire Castle. The Jizo also stand on the sites of the village checkpoints, which fought in peasant uprisings in the years of war. Once the fighting stopped, they watched over the people going out to the fields from the entrances of the village, and settled into daily life as guardians of the Kire moated village. In time they became Buddhas who protect children, and they are the setting for the Jizo Bon on August 23 and 24 every year, a feature of summer that children still enjoy today. The Jizo have been looked after for hundreds of years by the warm goodwill of the people living around them.
喜連環濠地区の6つの地蔵尊（北口、尻矢口、西口、馬倉、東口、南口）
From long ago, Jizo statues have been enshrined at the six entrances to the Kire moated village. Starting from the Bakura Jizo, whose name means the ground in front of the main gate at the southern entrance of the moat on the Naka-Koya Kaido road, and going counterclockwise, there is the solidly built Higashiguchi Jizo, with an Ansei-era stone monument standing beside it; the Shiriyaguchi Jizo, which is given a Kansei-era offering tray at the Jizo Bon festival (the name looks to mean the point where the defenses at the rear were strengthened); the Kitaguchi Jizo, which has a fine Jizo hall as the northern gateway on the Naka-Koya Kaido, and where the remains of Matsuyama Bridge, which once spanned the moat, are still there; the Nishiguchi Jizo, which has a kubi-jizo, a head-only Jizo with some story behind it, enshrined to the left of the main image; and the Minamiguchi Jizo, with a line-carved Jizo at its side that carries the feel of medieval times. The positions and the names of the six Jizo bring out the outer defenses of medieval Kire Castle. The Jizo also stand on the sites of the village checkpoints, which fought in peasant uprisings in the years of war. Once the fighting stopped, they watched over the people going out to the fields from the entrances of the village, and settled into daily life as guardians of the Kire moated village. In time they became Buddhas who protect children, and they are the setting for the Jizo Bon on August 23 and 24 every year, a feature of summer that children still enjoy today. The Jizo have been looked after for hundreds of years by the warm goodwill of the people living around them.
奥田邸とその裏の道
This is the residence of the Okuda family, who served for generations as the village headmen of Kurazukuri. The date the present house was built is not clear, but from the techniques used it is thought to be the house of a wealthy farmer from the early Edo period. It is one of the few private houses of its kind left in the city. The grounds, along with the main house, the reception rooms, the nagayamon gate and the storehouse, are designated national Important Cultural Properties.
小林新聞舗店舗
A retro building with arched window frames set in pairs, it also serves as the Newspaper Shop Museum. The business was founded in Meiji 22 (1889) and is the oldest newspaper dealership in the city; the building went up in Showa 4 (1929). It became a nationally registered cultural property in Heisei 19 (2007).
旧南海電鉄平野線平野駅跡プロムナード
A promenade laid out in Showa 58 (1983) on the former track bed of the Nankai Electric Railway Hirano Line, the streetcar people knew as the chin-chin densha. From the time it opened in Taisho 3 (1914) the Nankai Hirano Line carried a great many people, but it was closed in Showa 55 (1980) when the subway Tanimachi Line opened.
旧屋敷小路（喜連環濠地区内）
Along the old Naka-Koya Kaido road in the Kire moated village district, a historic streetscape remains, including the houses of old families built between the Edo and Meiji periods. Groups of remains have been rediscovered that confirm how an ancient village grew into a medieval moated settlement and then into an early modern soson village, and its history is gradually coming to light.
末吉家住宅
The Sueyoshi family was one of the seven great families of Hirano, and it built Sueyoshi Bridge, which still crosses the Higashi-Yokobori River. According to the Hirano Gocho-shi, the residence was completed around Hoei 4 (1707), and more than 300 years on you can still see its magnificent layout. The house, gate, wall and west storehouse, built in the middle of the Edo period, are registered as national tangible cultural properties.
野中山 全興寺（やっちゅうざん せんこうじ）
It is said to have begun 1,300 years ago, when Prince Shotoku built a hall here and enshrined an image of Yakushi Nyorai. The main hall, rebuilt in Kanbun 1 (1661) after a fire, is one of the oldest wooden buildings in Osaka Prefecture. In the grounds there is a Hell Hall and a Little Penny Candy Shop Museum, among other things, which visitors enjoy.
旭区
千林の長屋
A two-story row house built in Showa 12 (1937). Nine units, a block of four and a block of five, stand eave to eave, with the entrances and the kitchens facing the street, and the roof over the kitchen part is in the irimoya hip-and-gable style.
淀川城北ワンド
It lies on the embankment near Shirokita Park, and forms a varied ecosystem, including serving as a habitat for the itasenpara, a natural monument. Clean-up campaigns are run on site to protect the environment of the wando backwaters.
東成区
八王子神社御旅所の楠
The camphor tree at the Otabisho of Hachioji Shrine is said to be 1,300 years old, and there is a story that in the flood of Meiji 18 people escaped harm by lashing together a raft up in the tree. It measures 11 m around the trunk and stands 25 m tall, and is designated a preserved tree by the City of Osaka. Because the tree is so magnificent, the Otabisho of Hachioji Shrine is also called Kusunoki Shrine.
北中道の古い街並み
Tamatsu Bridge, where the Hirano River once crossed the Kuragari-goe Nara Kaido road, was a busy junction. If you turn north at the west end of Tamatsu Bridge, storehouses and houses with board fences run along both sides of the street, forming an old streetscape.
旧三井釦被服
From the middle of the Meiji period into the Taisho years there were many businesses around Imazato making buttons and clothing, and Mitsui Botan Hifuku was the largest of them. This building is said to have been put up in Shijonawate City in the early Showa years at the request of the military, as a youth school building; it was never used as one, and served instead as a temporary elementary school building, before being moved to its present site after the war. It was used to sell clothing products from the time it was moved here, and was later remodeled to change its use. When it was moved it was a symmetrical building, but the left-hand part was pulled down and it is now asymmetrical.
東小橋の街並み
Himekoso Shrine in Higashi-Obase has a long history. The Kojiki records it as enshrining Akaru-hime no Mikoto, who came over from Silla, and the shrine is said to have moved to its present site after being caught in the fires of the Ishiyama War. The area around Himekoso Shrine was once the center of Higashi-Obase village in the Edo and Meiji periods. Even today the old streetscape that escaped war damage remains, with Himekoso Shrine, Anraku-ji and houses with latticed fronts.
深江の建築物、史跡群
The story goes that it began when a clan from Yamato whose trade was sewing hats moved as a group to Fukae, where good-quality sedge grew thick. Traditions such as sedge hats and sedge craft are still carried on here, and the sedge hats used for the Shikinen Sengu rebuilding of Ise Jingu are supplied from here. In the Fukae settlement there are Fukae Inari Shrine, designated a historic site as the remains of Kasanui-no-mura, and Homyo-ji, and you can also see many thatched-roof houses, storehouses and Jizo halls.
火袋式道標
A stone signpost standing where the Kuragari-goe Nara Kaido road crosses Sennichimae-dori. Its upper part is hollowed out square to make a lantern box, with a cap set on top. It is said to have been put up by a nail wholesaler in Bunka 3 (1806), and it reads: to the right, Shikisan and the road to Yao and Kyuhoji; to the left, Ise and the road to Nara.
玉津の昭和初期の街並み
The area around Tamatsu is where the film 'Blood and Bones' was set. Around the stop for the Taiseidori 1-chome streetcar that appears in the film (closed in Showa 44 (1969)), streetscapes from the early Showa years remain, including a signboard that dates from the launch of Sunday Mainichi and an eatery founded in Showa 8 (1933).
矢田地蔵尊
It stands along the Kuragari-goe Nara Kaido east of Tamatsukuri Station. People are said to have made their prayers here before crossing the pass on the way to Nara. The Jizo has ties to Yata-dera in Nara, and the stone Jizo enshrined in the middle of the hall has directions to Yata-dera carved into it.
東淀川区
せせらぎの遊歩道
A brookside promenade 610 m long runs through Odo 3-chome to 5-chome. Trees grow thick along it and a small stream runs through. The stream was once used as an irrigation channel for farming. With the happy voices of children playing in the water and catching insects, people out walking with their fathers, and shoppers taking a rest on the benches on the way, it is loved as an oasis in the city. The 360 m stretch on the north side is laid out like a Japanese garden with rocks and stones, and the 250 m stretch on the south side is paved with tiles in the manner of a Western garden, each with its own character.
一柳家の門・塀
The ancestor of the Hitotsuyanagi family was Hitotsuyanagi Tarobee, one of the men in charge who worked hard to see the digging of the Nakajima Daisuido drainage canal through. Along the Kameoka Kaido side of the Hitotsuyanagi house there is a run of board fences, gates and earthen walls that carry a sense of history; the earthen wall that remains today has tiles of the period worked into it, and the four-legged gate that follows it, unusual for a private house, adds to the atmosphere. Beside the earthen wall stands a signpost built in Tenpo 7 (1836) pointing to the Kameoka Kaido and to Zuiko-ji, which brings to mind the streetscape along the old highway.
上新庄の古い趣のある家並み
In the area next to Hankyu Kami-Shinjo Station in Kami-Shinjo 2-chome, wooden buildings such as storehouses are dotted among the temple and shrine buildings of Shinkaku-ji and Kasuga Shrine, and you can see a row of houses with an old feel to them. Shinkaku-ji is thought to have been founded in the Bunroku era (1592 to 95). Kasuga Shrine was once known respectfully as Sakaki Shrine; in Tensho 6 (1578) a branch spirit of Kasuga Shrine in Nara was invited and enshrined here, and the name was changed to Kasuga Shrine. The main hall was built in Jokyo 2 (1685), trees grow thick in the grounds, and the camphor tree behind the main shrine in particular is more than 400 years old and is designated a preserved tree by the city. Wooden buildings that carry a sense of history also remain, such as the nagayamon gate and storehouses of the Uehara residence and the huge stone lantern in its outer enclosure, and the gate and storehouse of the Inoue residence, built between the Meiji and Taisho periods.
安威川と番田水路に挟まれた散歩道
As part of the Aigawa Water and Greenery Corridor Plan, the riverbed land along the Aigawa has been laid out with a continuous run of parks and promenades, and local people are fond of it as a refreshing waterside space where they can take a walk or join in clean-up activities.
延原倉庫（株）淡路物流センター
Nobuhara Warehouse today runs a warehouse rental business and owns many warehouses in Nishi-Awaji 6-chome. Among them, Warehouse No. 5, which you can see from the gate on the southeast side, was completed in the year after the Second World War broke out (Showa 17 (1942)), when Nobuhara Seisakusho, the company's predecessor, had been designated a munitions plant. Its huge reinforced concrete space is about 280 m long, about 20 m wide and about 18 m high, and it still has the solid feel of that time. Warehouse No. 7, in the southwest of the site, was built in the same period; it is a wooden building laid out with layer upon layer of beams and columns so that it could take heavy loads, and it is still used as a warehouse today. (Note) Nobuhara Warehouse now works as a general distribution center, and since many trucks and other vehicles move in and out of the site, it is not open to the public. For visits to the warehouses, Higashi-Yodogawa Ward Office holds tours twice a year (up to 20 people each time). For inquiries, contact the General Affairs Division of Higashi-Yodogawa Ward Office.
柴島浄水場
Water supply began in February of Taisho 3 (1914), and its standard daily capacity is 1,180,000 m3, serving the central, northern and northwestern parts of the city. The site of about 462,000 m2 holds facilities such as distribution reservoirs, pumping stations and an advanced water treatment building. Along the 460 m stretch on the east side of the Hankyu Kyoto Line tracks between Sozenji and Awaji stations, 160 cherry trees are planted, including Somei-yoshino more than 50 years old, and in spring the avenue of cherry blossoms is opened for people to walk through. On the north side of Sozenji Station, at the east corner of 1-8 Kunijima, part of the bullet marks left on the wall of the water treatment plant by a US air raid in June of Showa 20 (1945) is preserved and displayed along the road.
淀川河川敷（東淀川区）
The Yodo River is blessed with a varied natural setting, with wando backwaters and reed beds growing thick along the water, and it makes a splendid landscape. On the riverbed land, river parks have been laid out as places where you can enjoy sports and play while in touch with nature, with lawns, tennis courts and baseball grounds, and many people are fond of them. Civil engineering structures, bridges above all, are part of the scene too, and the Yodogawa Weir near Nagara Bridge in Kunijima 1-chome is an important part of the river's landscape.
環境局東淀工場
This plant was built to replace the old Higashiyodo plant, which had been out of operation since Heisei 13 (2001) because it had aged, and it was completed in Heisei 22 (2010). In planning it, the buildings were made as compact as possible and the wall surfaces were broken up so that it would feel less imposing, while a calm, simple exterior and active planting take the surrounding environment into account. The plant also has facilities for visitors, where you can see how the waste that is brought in is treated, and the routes and signage have been thought through so that it is easy for every user and visitor to understand and to use.
神崎川（東淀川区）
Along the Kanzaki River in Higashi-Yodogawa Ward you can enjoy some distinctive waterside spots: the Water and Greenery Friendship Plaza, the Naniwa Cycling Road, the crossing of the Kanzaki River and the Shinkansen, and Eguchi Bridge, the first two-main-girder bridge adopted in Japan. The Water and Greenery Friendship Plaza was laid out in Heisei 18 (2006) as a space for getting close to the river, and is enjoyed as a playground for children, a walking route for residents and a place to rest. The Naniwa Cycling Road was laid out in fiscal Heisei 13 (fiscal 2001) for recreation and better health, and with Eguchi no Kimido and Osumi Shrine nearby you can enjoy nature and touch on the history of Higashi-Yodogawa Ward at the same time. The Tokaido Shinkansen also crosses the Kanzaki River, so you can see a large man-made structure cutting across the natural axis of the river.
緑風橋
The Shimo-Shinjo district of Higashi-Yodogawa Ward is a dense area of wooden houses, and it was more than 2 km from the Yodo River right-bank riverbed land designated as a wide-area evacuation site, which made it what is called a district that is hard to evacuate. On the other side of the Kanzaki River, however, is Nakanoshima Park in Suita City, a wide-area evacuation site, and a bridge linking the two districts would let residents of Shimo-Shinjo reach that park quickly. For residents on the Suita side, meanwhile, it would make Hankyu Senri Line Shimo-Shinjo Station easier to use. Because the bridge brings large benefits to residents of both cities, it was carried out as a joint project by the two cities, with a subsidy from the National Land Agency's program to promote disaster-prevention green space networks. The bridge is also part of that disaster-prevention green space work, linking residential areas with wide-area evacuation sites and district disaster-prevention open spaces into a network, and it was designed with the making of a pleasant environment in mind as well. In its open surroundings it has designed lighting columns and railings, and at night you can enjoy the sight of the lit-up bridge from trains on the Hankyu Senri Line.
行友家と楠
The Yukitomo house in Sugahara 1-chome is an old private house built in Koka 1 (1844). On the side facing the road to the north it has a gate, a wall and a stone base, and together with the two large camphor trees on either side of the gate they make a corner with a real sense of history. The camphor trees can be seen clearly from a distance, and close up their size is overwhelming; one of the two is designated a preserved tree (about 22 m tall, about 4.4 m around the trunk).
逆巻の地蔵尊
The Sakamaki Jizo was set up in Koka 3 (1846) in Sakamaki village near Toyosato Bridge, on ground that is now the bed of the Yodo River. The current there was so fierce that boats had to furl their sails the other way round or they would capsize, so the spot was named the Sakamaki danger point and was feared. Boats were wrecked there again and again and many lives were lost, so this Jizo was built to comfort the dead and to pray for safe passage by boat. In Meiji 31 (1898), around the time of the Yodo River improvement works, the chief priest of Kanbutsu-ji dreamed that he had carried a monk in scarlet robes on his back to Kanbutsu-ji, and that the monk had turned into a Jizo; taking it as a sign that a Jizo about to be moved by the works wanted to be there, Kanbutsu-ji took the statue in and enshrined it. At that time nearly 80 stones bearing the posthumous names of the victims are said to have come out from under the Jizo. It is a large Jizo, 1.6 m tall including the lotus seat that rests on a hexagonal base, with thick drooping eyebrows and a small face full of compassion.
須賀森公園とくす
Suga-no-mori Park was created on the former site of Suga Shrine. To keep that storied site for good, the enthusiasm of local people turned it into a park, and it is now a place to rest. Here stands a great camphor tree about 600 years old, designated a natural monument of Osaka Prefecture on June 1 of Showa 56 (1981); it is 30 m tall and 1.6 m in diameter.
此花区
大阪北港マリーナ
A place where you can get close to the sea through marine sports and recreation, centered on yachts and boats. It also has tennis courts, and in the green space next to it you can enjoy sports and picnics while looking out at the sea.
新夕陽ヶ丘
Shin-Yuhigaoka on Maishima Sports Island has an observation deck with a white roof, and from the top of the small hill you can look out over Maishima and the Osaka Port bay area. On days when the air is clear you can see as far as Awaji Island and the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge. From the hill you can also watch a fine sunset, one of Japan's 100 selected sunsets.
旧鴻池本店・本宅
The former head office, built in Meiji 43 (1910), is a classic modern wooden Western-style building. The interior takes in the Art Nouveau style, with its flowing curved lines and surfaces and smooth walls, which makes it a valuable building even by national standards. The Architectural Institute of Japan selected it as a building of particular importance that deserves attention. The former main residence was built around the same time as the former head office, in a machiya townhouse style, and the decoration inside on the second floor is the work of the noted sculptor Unraku Aihara.
舞洲工場・舞洲スラッジセンター
As you cross Konohana Bridge from the port over to Maishima, two buildings stand out. The one on the left is the Maishima Plant. It has an incineration facility and a bulky waste processing facility side by side, uses the latest pollution control equipment and makes the most of its waste heat. The Maishima Sludge Center on the right is a facility that treats sewage sludge efficiently in one place. The exterior design of these buildings and their chimneys was handled by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the environmental artist known around the world, who brought trees onto the outer walls and the rooftops to bring them into harmony with nature, so that the whole expresses a harmony of technology, ecology and art.
舞洲工場・舞洲スラッジセンター
As you cross Konohana Bridge from the port over to Maishima, two buildings stand out. The one on the left is the Maishima Plant. It has an incineration facility and a bulky waste processing facility side by side, uses the latest pollution control equipment and makes the most of its waste heat. The Maishima Sludge Center on the right is a facility that treats sewage sludge efficiently in one place. The exterior design of these buildings and their chimneys was handled by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the environmental artist known around the world, who brought trees onto the outer walls and the rooftops to bring them into harmony with nature, so that the whole expresses a harmony of technology, ecology and art.
淀川区
淀川河川敷（淀川区）
On the Yodo River riverbed land in Yodogawa Ward, the Nishinakajima and Juso Yaso areas of Yodogawa Riverside Park provide valuable open space in the built-up part of the city. The Nishinakajima area has baseball grounds and lawns, and is busy on holidays with baseball and barbecues. The Juso Yaso area has good transport access and is also used as an event venue, busy with things like fireworks displays and marathons.
港区
大阪市築港赤レンガ倉庫
Built in Taisho 12 (1923) by Sumitomo Warehouse as a port warehouse. It is one of the few buildings in Minato Ward that came through the air raids unburned. It is now managed by the City of Osaka. It is closed because of earthquake safety problems, but the square next to it has been opened up so that people can still enjoy the place, and the city plans to keep looking into ways of putting the warehouse to use.
安治川水門
Osaka has taken heavy damage from storm surges, from Typhoon Jane and the Second Muroto Typhoon among others, and this gate was built in Showa 45 (1970) as a countermeasure. An arch-shaped gate (57 m wide) was chosen because it is safe against earthquakes and wind and because it leaves the clearance overhead that ships need when they pass.
桜通り
Along Sakura-dori, Somei-yoshino and sato-zakura cherry trees are planted over an 800 m stretch running north to south. The row of cherry trees was planted by people living in the area and is looked after by them, and it is a well-known cherry blossom spot in Minato Ward. When the blossoms open, the local preservation group hangs up bonbori paper lanterns.
生野区
コリアタウン
Miyukidori shopping street runs between Tsuruhashi and Momodani stations on the JR Loop Line, and about 140 shops stand along roughly 500 m of street, among them Korean grocery stores, restaurants and shops selling traditional dress. Most are run by Zainichi Korean people, the street is full of hangul, and the area is said to have the largest concentration of Zainichi Koreans in the country. In recent years local people have formed an NGO, which runs kimchi-making sessions, hangul classes and guided walks for junior and senior high school students who come from other parts of the country on school trips. The Central Gate and the Kudara Gate are the designs that stand as symbols of Koreatown.
中高野街道沿いの家並み
The Naka-Koya Kaido is a long highway that branches off the Kyo Kaido at Moriguchi and joins the Nishi-Koya Kaido in Osakasayama City. On the way it passes through towns that go back a long way, and along the stretch from Tatsumi Elementary School to the area around Tatsumi Shrine you can see old houses, a nenbutsu hall and stone monuments, making a row of houses with a calm, settled feel.
俊徳街道道標2基と西俊徳地蔵堂
In Katsuyama-kita 4-chome in Ikuno Ward stands the Nishi-Shuntoku Jizo hall, where a life-size seated stone Buddha is enshrined. The information board says that Shuntokumaru rested on the bank of the clear-flowing Hirano River on his way to worship at Shitenno-ji. Beside this Jizo hall are two signposts for the Shuntoku Kaido, the road that runs almost due east from the south gate of Shitenno-ji. Heading east along the road you come to the Higashi-Shuntoku Jizo hall; the image is enshrined at the back of the hall so you cannot take in its fine figure, but from the style of the carving it is thought to be work of the late Muromachi period, and it is carefully looked after by local people.
平野川の自然的景観
The old Hirano River wound sharply from around Shuntoku Bridge in Ikuno Ward to around Nakamoto Bridge in Higashinari Ward, and it often flooded as a result. To change its course, it was straightened in Taisho 12 (1923) into the Hirano River we see today. The present river runs from where it branches off the Yamato River to where it joins the Second Neya River. From the Nara period into the Heian period the Kudara district was set up here and the river ran through the middle of it, so in the old days it was called the Kudara River. Between Hiranogawa Ohashi bridge and the area around Ryogoku Bridge you can see the natural flow of the river and birds such as spot-billed ducks.
旧猪飼野村にある旧家・大東邸
In the old house known as the Daito residence, the outer walls of the storehouse are made from old ship planks, and on grounds of more than 300 tsubo a large garden and an old well with a stone frame still remain; the well inside the main house, in what used to be the earth-floored area, is said to be still in use for watering and the like. Many of the larger old houses that kept the look of earlier days have been pulled down over the years, and in the former Ikaino village (now Tsuruhashi) surviving examples are rare.
木村権右衛門邸跡の神木
It stands on the site of the residence of Kimura Gonemon, a descendant of Ikaino Samanosuke, who was the husband of the elder sister of Kimura Shigenari (killed in the Summer Campaign of the Siege of Osaka at the age of 23). The site is now a parking lot, but a sacred chinquapin tree about 400 years old remains, along with a fine stone lantern and garden stones. The sacred tree is said to have been planted by Shigenari's own hand.
翠岩さん墓所と頌徳碑
This is the grave of Sumiyoshiya Taroemon, who was born in the old Nakagawa village about 300 years ago and put his own money into improving welfare in the area. He later shaved his head and took the name Suigan. He was charitable by nature and had a strong public spirit, and he left many achievements behind, building 11 bridges in the nearby villages, repairing roads, donating money to shrines and temples, and giving funds to supply rice to villagers. The land he donated at the time is still managed as the Nakagawa-cho property ward, and it goes on benefiting welfare and local development. At the entrance to the grave, part of a stone bridge that Suigan built has been set down as a memorial stone, keeping his legacy in mind.
鶴橋地域に残る旧家の家並み
The Kuwazu Kaido starts at Saikudani on the Uemachi plateau and runs to Kuwazu Tenjin Shrine in Higashisumiyoshi Ward. Emperor Nintoku is said to have taken it from Takatsu Palace to visit his consort Kaminagahime, who lived in Kuwazu. The road also ran through the settlement of the old Kino village (around present-day Momodani 2-chome), and rows of old family houses remain in this area.
福島区
トンネルの路地
Going south through Noda shopping street from the north toward the Ajikawa River, a little past Onomachi Park, there is an alley that turns into a tunnel. The alley is a narrow passage less than 10 m long between an old house and a pharmacy, and the roof of the house covers the alley, making it a tunnel.
旧川崎貯蓄銀行福島出張所（ミナミビル）
The building of Minami Co., Ltd., facing National Route 2 near JR Shin-Fukushima Station, was built in Showa 9 (1934) and is a nationally registered cultural property. The Minami Building, with two floors above ground and one below in reinforced concrete, has a front set with four Ionic columns that curves gently backward, giving it a sense of depth. The arched canopy over the entrance is carved with decoration, and the tops of the columns inside the building carry Corinthian ornament, which adds to the sense of splendor.
樹齢200年のクスノキ
A camphor tree about 200 years old grows out over the road from the wall of a private house. At first glance it looks as if it is growing from outside the wall, but in fact its roots reach under the house. They say that every time a tall truck hits the branches the shock travels down and the house shakes hard.
莫大小（メリヤス）会館
The Meriyasu Kaikan at the north end of Dojima Ohashi bridge was built by the Osaka Export Knitwear Industry Association as its office, in two stages: the first in Showa 4 (1929) and the second in Showa 12 (1937). Because knitwear stretches freely and can turn out either huge or small, it was written with the characters 莫大小 and read meriyasu. The building is now a tenant building, with architectural design offices, restaurants and cafes and galleries in it. (Design: So Architectural Office; construction: Osaka Hashimoto-gumi)
野田の長屋
Fukushima Ward did not suffer much war damage, so a fair number of older homes such as row houses remain, and some have udatsu, the small raised walls that rise between the roofs. Once the Showa years came in, glass became relatively cheap to get hold of, and row houses with large glass windows were popular.
野田緑道
Noda Ryokudo was laid out as a park on the site of the spur line into the central wholesale market, which closed in March of Showa 60. It was built as a park to bring some greenery to the local environment, and today residents enjoy it as a place to relax.
西区
京セラドーム大阪
An all-weather multipurpose dome that opened in Heisei 9 (1997). What stands out is the way a smaller roof runs in waves around the outside of the big roof above the arena. It is used all year round for professional baseball, sports events, cultural events and other events of every kind.
大阪アドプト・リバー・千代崎（木津川右岸）
As part of the plan to revive Osaka as a water city, Osaka Prefecture built a boat landing and a promenade on the right bank of the Kizugawa River. Along with that, in Heisei 17 (2005) the Chiyozaki federated neighborhood association and Osaka Prefecture signed an Adopt River Program agreement, and this stretch is kept looking good through cleaning and beautification work.
安治川
It was dug in Jokyo 1 (1684) by Kawamura Zuiken, on orders from the shogunate. As a result boats could come and go more easily into the center of Osaka, which helped the city grow. Both banks are lined with factories and warehouses that recall the days when river shipping was busy, and there are many stone monuments, among them one marking the birthplace of the Port of Osaka.
島谷家住宅
In Honden 4-chome a streetscape of row houses that escaped war damage remains. In one corner of it stands a row house where you can see a latticed entrance and a projecting lattice window on the first floor, with udatsu raised between the first-floor roof and the second-floor roof.
日本聖公会川口基督教会
The brick church was completed in Taisho 9 (1920). The designer was the architect William Wilson. It has an entrance hall on the east side and a 19 m tower at the southeast corner. It was badly damaged in the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of Heisei 7 (1995), but was restored through the determination of those involved.
旧岩崎運河
A canal 560 m long linking the Kizugawa and Shirinashi rivers. Because the Shirinashi River was not suited to large vessels, the canal was dug in Taisho 9 (1920) to connect it with the Kizugawa. Downstream, the Iwasaki Canal railway bridge was built in Showa 3 (1928) and forms part of the JR Loop Line. On the right bank, space with easy access to the water has been laid out to go with the development of the Iwasakibashi district. Note that today the stretch from the point where it branches off the Kizugawa River down to the mouth, including the former Iwasaki Canal, is the Shirinashi River.
菅澤眼科クリニック
An eye clinic built in Showa 3 (1928) and renovated in Showa 22 (1947). What stands out are the columns and arch at the front entrance, the outer walls faced with tiles imported from Germany, and the long, narrow arched windows.
道頓堀川水門
Completed in fiscal Heisei 12 (March 2001). Together with the Higashi-Yokobori River Water Gate it serves to defend against storm surges, to clean the water and to support river traffic. It is designed with the landscape of the Iwasakibashi district on the other side of the Kizugawa River in mind, and its near-future look stands out.
都島区
櫻宮御旅所 渡辺綱・駒つなぎの樟（くす）
Up until Meiji 42 (1909) the tutelary shrine of the old Zengenji village stood here, and this great camphor tree stands at what is now the Sakuranomiya Otabisho. The tree was planted in the middle of the Heian period, when Minamoto no Yorimitsu founded the shrine. Watanabe no Tsuna, one of Yorimitsu's four guardians and the retainer put in charge of this estate, is said to have tied up his horse here when he came to worship, which is why it is called the camphor tree where Watanabe no Tsuna tied his horse.
淀川河川敷（都島区）
Yodogawa Riverside Park has been laid out on the Yodo River riverbed land since Showa 47 (1972), and this section was laid out in Showa 51 (1976). The part of the park in Miyakojima Ward has sports grounds along with lawns and wild-grass fields, making a space the whole family can enjoy. The green space takes up a wide area, so you can enjoy the relaxed landscape of the Yodo River.
藤田邸跡（太閤園、藤田邸跡公園、藤田美術館）
鵺塚
According to the Tale of the Heike, in the late Heian period Minamoto no Yorimasa shot down a strange bird that had been troubling Emperor Konoe night after night. It had the head of a monkey, the body of a raccoon dog, the tail of a snake and the limbs of a tiger, and its cry was like that of the toratsugumi, so it was called a nue. The nue was placed on a dugout boat and set adrift on the Yodo River, and it washed ashore on the beach at Kasugae; the villagers, fearing a curse, told the chief priest of Boon-ji, who held a careful memorial service and buried it in the ground, and that is said to be the Nue Mound. The mound as it is now was repaired by Osaka Prefecture in Meiji 3 (1870), and the small shrine was repaired by local people in Showa 32 (1957). This nue is also used in the design of the crest of the Port of Osaka.
阿倍野区
Hoop
An urban commercial complex marked by an open space with a city feel and a bold shape that changes its look between day and night. To bring out the bustle of a shopping complex, the outer wall in the middle of the building is made up of glass screens, so you can see through it easily. There is no boundary line between the inside and the outside of the building, so people passing through can enjoy the space freely, without feeling held in. It opened in September of Heisei 12 (2000), with six floors above ground, a height of about 30 m and a total floor area of about 20,000 m2.
はやし製菓本舗
One street east of Abeno-suji, the Oji 1-chome shopping street runs 100 m north to south and is lined with sushi restaurants, butchers and the like. Among them is Hayashi Seika Honpo, known for its Naniwa kotoba rice crackers. The shop has been making senbei for more than 80 years, and each Naniwa kotoba cracker is stamped with a word of old Osaka speech such as beppin or hannari.
ドムール北畠
In an old, long established residential area inside a scenic district, the design makes use of the changes in level across the site and the large trees already growing there, setting distinctive homes along a road shared by cars and pedestrians. Completed in July of Showa 57.
北畠住宅
Municipal housing sold to buyers in the Taisho period. A stone pillar reading Kitabatake Jichi-chokai, the local residents' association, stands in one corner. This land, a wood called Kiriyama in the Taisho period, went through land readjustment ahead of the areas around it, so its blocks differ in shape and character from the neighbouring streets. The roads inside the block are unpaved as well, which makes it an important resource for telling the story of how this area became a city.
大阪市立工芸高等学校・第二工芸高等学校
The main building of Osaka Municipal Kogei High School and Daini Kogei High School was born under the strong influence of the Bauhaus movement, which stood at the centre of modern design worldwide, and its modern architectural design and sensibility deserve the name the Bauhaus of Osaka. The outer walls of the first and second floors are laid in brick, and the great arch at the entrance sets off the front of the building. The third floor is covered by a mansard style roof with a graceful curve, and breaking it up with classroom windows makes the curved surface stand out all the more, so the exterior as a whole is highly distinctive. A clock tower rises on the roof as a symbol, making the Art Nouveau character of the building felt all the more. It is the only high school in the country made up of five design departments and a fine art department, where design and form are studied as a whole. It was founded as Osaka Municipal Kogei High School in Taisho 12 (1923). A second main course (evening division) was authorised in Showa 16 (1941), and in Showa 28 (1953) it became independent as Daini Kogei High School, with a part time course.
大阪府阿倍野警察署
A police station building about 300 m south of the crossing of Abeno-suji and the Hanshin Expressway. Its exterior is symmetrical left and right. Completed in June of Heisei 2, with seven floors above ground and one below.
奧田邸のクスノキ
In the private grounds of a house where descendants of Okuda Ichirobei, who cleared the Saruyama Shinden fields in Kanbun 3 (1663), still live, there is a camphor tree designated a preservation tree by the city of Osaka. When the new fields were opened up, woodland was planted as a windbreak and for the look of the place, and it was called the Saruyama forest. This camphor tree is what remains of that forest.
姫松停留場
Tram stops are usually simple, with no more than a shelter on the platform, but Himematsu was built as a free standing structure: a small wooden station building, single storey, with a sheet metal roof. It is thought to date from around Taisho 7, when electrification was spreading. There is an opening at the front, and the inside is a single room. Brackets on the pillars support the beam, and lattice struts are set between the tops of the pillars and the beam.
岸の五本松
The pines known as Kishi no Gohonmatsu, the five pines of Kishi, remain across the street west of the main gate of Sumiyoshi High School, along the sports ground. Long ago pine woods ran through this neighbourhood too, with pines growing thick, but as the area was built up and became residential only five pines were left along the road. One has since died, leaving four, but local people value the connection with the Kishi no Himematsu pine of old and have long called them the five pines of Kishi.
晴明丘中央公園
A park along the tracks of the Hankai Tramway Uemachi Line, just south of Kitabatake Station. At about 12,000 square metres it is a spacious park, thick with trees, and a place where people come to relax. Opened in March, Showa 57 (1982).
松虫塚
Long ago this area was open field as far as the eye could see, filled in autumn with the voices of insects, and it was known as a place to hear the clear song of the matsumushi, the insect now called suzumushi. According to the old book Ashiwakebune, legends survive here, among them that Matsumushi and Suzumushi, sisters and shirabyoshi dancers favoured by the retired Emperor Go-Toba, lived here in hiding.
桃ヶ池長屋
This row house was built in Showa 4 (1929). It has a through passage, a touch of luxury that was unusual for the early Showa years. The street in front of it flourished as part of the highway linking Tanabe with Oji Shrine, and many of the people who lived there were in trade. The walls have been replastered and some floors relaid to suit life today, but the frame, the pillars and beams, remains as it was.
源正寺楼門
Listed as a national registered cultural property in Heisei 14 (2002). The two storey gate was built in Meiji 22 (1889) and moved here from Uehonmachi 6-chome in Taisho 12 (1923). Almost everything, including the main image, was lost in the great air raids on Osaka, but the gate and the sutra mound escaped the fire. The temple is a branch temple of Chion-in. The gate is in the ryugu style, with the hakamagoshi skirt of the lower storey plastered over, while the upper storey has degumi bracketing, closely set double rafters, an irimoya roof and honkawara tiles. The kaerumata and elbow brackets are full of modern design in their forms and patterns, and facing the old Kumano-kaido road the gate is a familiar sight as a ryugu gate.
熊野街道
From around the middle of the Heian period, retired emperors and nobles came to think of Kumano as a pure land reached at the end of hardship, and pilgrimages there became popular. The Kumano-kaido, which runs on from the Hachikenya boat landing on the Okawa river at Tenma, goes south along Abeno-suji to the Matsumushi crossing, then turns into the narrow street one block west of Abeno-suji. Shrines, temples and historic houses are scattered along the calm, quiet streets, and you can still sense the road of prayer that so many people once walked.
聖天山
Until Showa 25 (1950) the area around Shotenyama was untouched rough ground like primeval forest, and it is thought to have been a keyhole shaped burial mound with a moat about the size of the Tezukayama tomb. Emperor Shomu is said to have stopped at this mound, and it was long called Shomu-tei-yama; the name Shotenyama came into use after Daisho Kangiten was enshrined at Shoenji temple. Shotenyama Park opened in October of Showa 34 (1959), covers about 16,500 square metres, and has a huge camphor tree near its centre. Shoenji, famous as Shoten-san, is a branch temple of To-ji in Kyoto of the Kogi Shingon school, and its founding story tells that a hall was built 500 m east of the present site in Tengyo 2 (939) and called Hannyasan Abeno-dera. Beside the main approach to Shoenji stands a stone marker carved with the words Daisho Kangiten, and its base stone, the Kenko Hoshi straw beating stone, survives. On the high ground at the south entrance of Shotenyama Park stands a literary monument to Yoshida Kenko carved with the opening passage of Tsurezuregusa.
路面電車の走るあべの筋
Abeno-suji is a road running north to south through Abeno and Sumiyoshi wards, and for about 1.2 km of it, from the Abeno Kintetsu-mae crossing at Abenosuji 1-chome, the Hankai Tramway Uemachi Line runs along the street. Historically, in Meiji 18 (1885) the Hankai Railway, forerunner of today's Nankai Electric Railway, opened between Namba and the Yamatogawa river, and in Meiji 22 (1889), when the city of Osaka was founded, Tennoji Station opened. In Meiji 33 (1900) the Osaka Horse Tramway, forerunner of today's chin chin densha, the Hankai Tramway, opened between Tennoji Saimon-mae and Higashi Tengachaya, with horse drawn carriages running on rails. As people concentrated in the city, passenger numbers grew quickly and electrification of the horse tramway was considered; in Meiji 42 (1909) it merged with Nankai Electric Railway (separated from Nankai in Showa 55 (1980)), and from the following year the cars were switched to electric. Many such lines have been abolished as traffic increased, but on this stretch of Abeno-suji the chin chin densha still runs, and amid the redevelopment around the station it makes a relaxed piece of townscape that local people are especially fond of.
阪南町界隈の特徴的な長屋・住宅のある町並み
The streets around Hannan-cho were laid out step by step by the Hannan Land Readjustment Association, set up in Taisho 13 (1924), and many row houses were built at that time. Row houses of all kinds survive today, from traditional Japanese styles to mixed Japanese and Western designs and boldly Western ones. Besides the row houses, many other distinctive homes remain in this neighbourhood.
阿倍野七坂（さくら坂）
The western part of Abeno ward sits at the western edge of the Uemachi plateau, which runs north to south, and the land is full of rises and falls. Go south along the Kumano-kaido road from Abe no Seimei Shrine and Abeoji Shrine, turn west at the first crossroads, and you come out on Aioi-dori. Around Aioi-dori, and around Abeno Shrine to its south, erosion cut several valleys, so the land is full of slopes. Some take their names from the shrine, such as Yashiro-zaka, named after the hall of Abeno Shrine, and Miya-zaka, the slope that continues to the main approach. There is also Sakura-zaka, which as its name says once had a beautiful row of cherry trees, along with Midori-zaka and Minami-zaka. The narrow, steep slope that climbs north from the corner by Aioi post office on Aioi-dori is called Aishin-zaka, a name said to come from people of Aioi-dori often meeting and exchanging greetings at the foot of it when they went shopping toward Oji-cho. The slope to its east, climbing south, is called Aioi-zaka. That name is said to come from the streets running east from Tenjin-no-mori on the Kishu-kaido road meeting near the slope.
阿倍野七坂（みどり坂）
The western part of Abeno ward sits at the western edge of the Uemachi plateau, which runs north to south, and the land is full of rises and falls. Go south along the Kumano-kaido road from Abe no Seimei Shrine and Abeoji Shrine, turn west at the first crossroads, and you come out on Aioi-dori. Around Aioi-dori, and around Abeno Shrine to its south, erosion cut several valleys, so the land is full of slopes. Some take their names from the shrine, such as Yashiro-zaka, named after the hall of Abeno Shrine, and Miya-zaka, the slope that continues to the main approach. There is also Sakura-zaka, which as its name says once had a beautiful row of cherry trees, along with Midori-zaka and Minami-zaka. The narrow, steep slope that climbs north from the corner by Aioi post office on Aioi-dori is called Aishin-zaka, a name said to come from people of Aioi-dori often meeting and exchanging greetings at the foot of it when they went shopping toward Oji-cho. The slope to its east, climbing south, is called Aioi-zaka. That name is said to come from the streets running east from Tenjin-no-mori on the Kishu-kaido road meeting near the slope.
阿倍野七坂（みなみ坂）
The western part of Abeno ward sits at the western edge of the Uemachi plateau, which runs north to south, and the land is full of rises and falls. Go south along the Kumano-kaido road from Abe no Seimei Shrine and Abeoji Shrine, turn west at the first crossroads, and you come out on Aioi-dori. Around Aioi-dori, and around Abeno Shrine to its south, erosion cut several valleys, so the land is full of slopes. Some take their names from the shrine, such as Yashiro-zaka, named after the hall of Abeno Shrine, and Miya-zaka, the slope that continues to the main approach. There is also Sakura-zaka, which as its name says once had a beautiful row of cherry trees, along with Midori-zaka and Minami-zaka. The narrow, steep slope that climbs north from the corner by Aioi post office on Aioi-dori is called Aishin-zaka, a name said to come from people of Aioi-dori often meeting and exchanging greetings at the foot of it when they went shopping toward Oji-cho. The slope to its east, climbing south, is called Aioi-zaka. That name is said to come from the streets running east from Tenjin-no-mori on the Kishu-kaido road meeting near the slope.
阿倍野七坂（みや坂）
The western part of Abeno ward sits at the western edge of the Uemachi plateau, which runs north to south, and the land is full of rises and falls. Go south along the Kumano-kaido road from Abe no Seimei Shrine and Abeoji Shrine, turn west at the first crossroads, and you come out on Aioi-dori. Around Aioi-dori, and around Abeno Shrine to its south, erosion cut several valleys, so the land is full of slopes. Some take their names from the shrine, such as Yashiro-zaka, named after the hall of Abeno Shrine, and Miya-zaka, the slope that continues to the main approach. There is also Sakura-zaka, which as its name says once had a beautiful row of cherry trees, along with Midori-zaka and Minami-zaka. The narrow, steep slope that climbs north from the corner by Aioi post office on Aioi-dori is called Aishin-zaka, a name said to come from people of Aioi-dori often meeting and exchanging greetings at the foot of it when they went shopping toward Oji-cho. The slope to its east, climbing south, is called Aioi-zaka. That name is said to come from the streets running east from Tenjin-no-mori on the Kishu-kaido road meeting near the slope.
阿倍野七坂（やしろ坂）
The western part of Abeno ward sits at the western edge of the Uemachi plateau, which runs north to south, and the land is full of rises and falls. Go south along the Kumano-kaido road from Abe no Seimei Shrine and Abeoji Shrine, turn west at the first crossroads, and you come out on Aioi-dori. Around Aioi-dori, and around Abeno Shrine to its south, erosion cut several valleys, so the land is full of slopes. Some take their names from the shrine, such as Yashiro-zaka, named after the hall of Abeno Shrine, and Miya-zaka, the slope that continues to the main approach. There is also Sakura-zaka, which as its name says once had a beautiful row of cherry trees, along with Midori-zaka and Minami-zaka. The narrow, steep slope that climbs north from the corner by Aioi post office on Aioi-dori is called Aishin-zaka, a name said to come from people of Aioi-dori often meeting and exchanging greetings at the foot of it when they went shopping toward Oji-cho. The slope to its east, climbing south, is called Aioi-zaka. That name is said to come from the streets running east from Tenjin-no-mori on the Kishu-kaido road meeting near the slope.
阿倍野七坂（相生阪）
The western part of Abeno ward sits at the western edge of the Uemachi plateau, which runs north to south, and the land is full of rises and falls. Go south along the Kumano-kaido road from Abe no Seimei Shrine and Abeoji Shrine, turn west at the first crossroads, and you come out on Aioi-dori. Around Aioi-dori, and around Abeno Shrine to its south, erosion cut several valleys, so the land is full of slopes. Some take their names from the shrine, such as Yashiro-zaka, named after the hall of Abeno Shrine, and Miya-zaka, the slope that continues to the main approach. There is also Sakura-zaka, which as its name says once had a beautiful row of cherry trees, along with Midori-zaka and Minami-zaka. The narrow, steep slope that climbs north from the corner by Aioi post office on Aioi-dori is called Aishin-zaka, a name said to come from people of Aioi-dori often meeting and exchanging greetings at the foot of it when they went shopping toward Oji-cho. The slope to its east, climbing south, is called Aioi-zaka. That name is said to come from the streets running east from Tenjin-no-mori on the Kishu-kaido road meeting near the slope.
阿倍野七坂（相親坂）
The western part of Abeno ward sits at the western edge of the Uemachi plateau, which runs north to south, and the land is full of rises and falls. Go south along the Kumano-kaido road from Abe no Seimei Shrine and Abeoji Shrine, turn west at the first crossroads, and you come out on Aioi-dori. Around Aioi-dori, and around Abeno Shrine to its south, erosion cut several valleys, so the land is full of slopes. Some take their names from the shrine, such as Yashiro-zaka, named after the hall of Abeno Shrine, and Miya-zaka, the slope that continues to the main approach. There is also Sakura-zaka, which as its name says once had a beautiful row of cherry trees, along with Midori-zaka and Minami-zaka. The narrow, steep slope that climbs north from the corner by Aioi post office on Aioi-dori is called Aishin-zaka, a name said to come from people of Aioi-dori often meeting and exchanging greetings at the foot of it when they went shopping toward Oji-cho. The slope to its east, climbing south, is called Aioi-zaka. That name is said to come from the streets running east from Tenjin-no-mori on the Kishu-kaido road meeting near the slope.
阿倍野区民センター
Osaka City provides each ward with a civic centre, ward hall or venue as a multi purpose gathering place for community activity. As well as a large hall seating more than 600 people and meeting rooms, this one has studios, a cooking room and an atelier that doubles as a workshop. Completed in January of Heisei 14, with twelve floors above ground and one below (basement to second floor, the civic centre; third floor, the library; fourth to twelfth floors, public corporation rental housing).
阿倍野歩道橋
This footbridge was planned as a replacement, as part of the Abeno redevelopment project. A design competition for the Abeno footbridge was held over fiscal Heisei 18 and 19 (fiscal 2006 and 2007), with conditions including a landmark fitting for the southern gateway to Osaka, the creation of open pedestrian space, and a lively, barrier free route. The entry designed on the theme that the town begins from the a of Abeno was chosen as the winner, and the bridge was designed and built from it, opening fully to traffic in April of Heisei 25. With roofs and structures that change height to give varied space, and a viewing area that juts out over the road toward Tennoji Park, a new kind of footbridge was born, a starting point for all sorts of activity: walking, talking, looking, waiting for someone. It received a technology award from the Kansai branch of the Japan Society of Civil Engineers in fiscal Heisei 25 (fiscal 2013) and a Good Design Award in fiscal Heisei 26 (fiscal 2014).
阿倍野長屋
Step one lane east from Abiko-suji and you find a slightly nostalgic downtown scene, and in one corner of it stands Abeno Nagaya. Inside there is a Western style building and a veranda looking onto a courtyard, a place where you relax as soon as you sit down. It can be rented by the hour or by the day as a space for all sorts of people, and is used for meetups, computer classes, yoga classes, exhibitions and other events.
鶴見区
中高野街道の剣街道
The Naka-Koya-kaido, much used by people travelling from Kyoto and Osaka to visit Mount Koya in Wakayama, was also called the Tsurugi-kaido around here. The name Tsurugi-kaido is said to come from its being the approach road to Achihayao Shrine, which in the Edo period was called Yatsurugi Shrine.
井路の名残り
Because Tsurumi ward was low lying wetland, artificial channels called iji ran through it like a net, and until some years after the war boats made of three planks carried people and goods along them. From the Showa 40s onward they were filled in and most became roads, but a few places keep the old feel.
横堤 花と緑のプロムナード
About 500 m of the Nishisanso urban drainage channel, between Yokozutsumibashi bridge and Ryokuchibashi bridge, has been covered over and laid out as a promenade and a place for ward residents to relax. It is divided into zones for feeling earth, feeling stone, feeling wood and feeling water, with benches and distinctive planting arranged to make the walk enjoyable.
鶴見はなぽ～とブロッサム
Created as an amenity space where many people can meet flowers, enjoy them and live richer lives. Its exterior, which expresses the image of the night blooming cereus, is distinctive. It brings together the Osaka Tsurumi Flower Market, which plays a central role in western Japan as a wholesale market for flowers, and Mitsui Outlet Park Osaka Tsurumi, the first full scale outlet mall in Japan, where besides shopping there are weekend events and other ways to enjoy the place, making it a complex where distribution and retail come together.
Source: 大阪市 観光施設一覧 (CC BY 4.0), the rows the city files as 都市景観資源. Names stay Japanese; the notes are translated from the city's own Japanese. 150 of these have an Osaka Metro station within 1200 m in a straight line. Places already on the sights list are not repeated here.
