UCCJ Naniwa Church

Naniwa Church stands in a corner of Kitahama in Osaka, where many retro buildings are mixed in among the office blocks. The three-storey building has Gothic pointed-arch windows, yellow and green coloured glass and a tower of careful design, and was completed in 1930. It was designed and built by Takenaka Corporation under the design guidance of William Merrell Vories, who came to Japan in the middle of the Meiji period as an English teacher at Hachiman Commercial High School and went on with Christian mission work and with social work based on its principles in education, publishing, medicine and schools; he is also known for spreading Mentholatum and for designing the Daimaru store in Shinsaibashi. Naniwa Church goes back to 1877 and Naniwa Kokai, the first self-supporting church in Japan, founded independently by eleven believers. Perhaps for that reason, the inside of the chapel has a familiarity close to ordinary people. The chapel on the second floor, meanwhile, is bright with light coming through the coloured glass windows, in gentle colours, a space plainer and more beautiful than the exterior.

Translated from the Osaka Prefecture and Osaka City tourist listings (観光施設一覧, CC BY 4.0).