Abeno Harukas

Abeno Harukas is a skyscraper in the Abeno district of Osaka, Japan. It is 300 metres tall, and from 2014 until 2023 it was the tallest building in the whole country, until a new tower in Tokyo took the title.

It is sometimes called a vertical city. A department store, offices, a museum, a hotel and a sightseeing deck are stacked on top of one another, all right above a busy train station. The name comes from an old Japanese word, harukasu, which means to brighten or to clear up, like the sky after clouds drift away. Its name and its tall, stepped shape have made it a favourite spot for people who love city views.

What is inside the tower?

The lowest floors, from underground up to the 14th, are a huge department store, and the station is on the ground level. Offices fill roughly the 17th to 36th floors, and a rooftop garden and museum sit on the 16th. A hotel takes the 38th to 57th floors, with guest rooms and restaurants. At the very top, the 58th to 60th floors hold the Harukas 300 observatory, where you can look out over Osaka from about 300 metres up.

How tall is it, and why does that matter?

Construction finished in March 2014. At 300 metres it beat every other building in Japan, and it held that record for about nine years. Counting the floors depends on the method, since the tower has about 60 floors above ground. Its total floor space is around 100,000 square metres, which makes the department store one of the biggest in Japan. Seen from outside, its glass boxes step back toward the south as they rise.

On the globe

The model shows the tower built from stacked glass volumes that step back toward the south as they rise. Look for the narrow top that holds the observatory.