It’s mind-blowing to me how many cool and unusual buildings are in just one city. Take Osaka, for instance; it’s the third-largest city in Japan and it has some of the strangest, most unique buildings on Earth.

The more I look into architecture in Osaka, the more I kept finding more and more beautiful, unusual, and just plain cool buildings.

Gate Tower Building

Sometimes, difficult situations lead to weird compromises. There’s no better example of this than the Gate Tower Building.

In 1983, a local business decided to put up a small office tower on their land. Unfortunately, they ran into a problem; the land where they wanted to build on? There was already a highway (the Hanshin Expressway) planned to run through there.

The two forces clashed and, ultimately, neither really gave in. The Hanshin company had no other options if it wanted to build its highway, and the property owners were steadfast in their desires to build an office building. Both sides were persistent and stubborn, and negotiations dragged on.

But after five years, they reached a compromise. The highway would go through the building.

What happens when an unstoppable force meets immovable object? Apparently, an architectural and engineering oddity.

Construction of both the highway and the office building began in tandem. They set aside floors 5-7 of the building for the highway.

The tunnel going through the building has measures in place to muffle sound and vibrations, and doesn’t actually come in contact with the building itself. Apparently, the office workers inside of the building don’t notice a thing.

The whole thing has a very futuristic feel to it. It’s easy to think of a giant metropolis with roads running through buildings on every levels, crisscrossing through the skyline.

What makes the highway even cooler is that, if you notice at the end of the video, it cruises right by the Umeda Sky Building.

Umeda Sky Building

Even though the Umeda Sky Building doesn’t have nearly as dramatic a history, it’s still probably the most recognizable sight in Osaka’s skyline.

Finished in 1993, the Umeda Sky Building is a unique skyscraper that, in essence, is two skyscrapers loosely connected. Not only does the Umeda Sky Building look amazing, but it also provides one of the best views of Osaka around.

The journey to the top of the building is long, but worth it. There’s a narrow, enclosed escalator ride up to the top, where you’ll find the Floating Garden Observatory.

Once at the top (if you’re not puking from vertigo), you’ll find yourself with a full, 360° view of Osaka. Take a deep breath and take the in the sights.

But the Gate Tower and Umeda Sky Building are both relatively recent additions to the Osaka skyline. For the last century, there’s been one, consistent sight in the Osaka skyline: the Tsutenkaku building.

Tsutenkaku

Tsutenkaku (通天閣) or “Tower Reaching Heaven” maybe isn’t as impressive to outsiders as it is to Osaka natives, but everybody should be able to respect its longevity as a symbol in Osaka.

A strange, round fugu?! Impossible.

The Tsutenkaku has been standing in Osaka since the 50s, but it’s not the first iteration of the tower. Before that, there stood another Tsutenkaku that was a bit different.

The original Tsutenkaku was largely modeled after the Eiffel tower and, for a time, was the second tallest building in all of Asia. Unfortunately, it was irreparably damaged in a fire and had to be torn down.

Up until now, all the buildings that we’ve been talking about have all been tall, fairly conventional buildings. What about more unorthodox buildings?

Namba Parks

Okay, so Namba Parks isn’t really a single building as a collection of buildings, but it’s still one of the coolest sights in all of Osaka.

Namba Parks is actually a shopping center and office park, but you wouldn’t guess that from looking at it. Walkways curve through the complex, looking more like canyon walls than the side of a mall.

And at the top, there’s a luscious garden. In one of the biggest cities in Japan, the collection of trees, shrubs, ponds, and waterfalls is a rare but welcome one.

But Namba Parks isn’t the only leafy, green building in the city. Another architectural marvel in Osaka is literally covered in plants. Say hello to the Organic Building.

Organic Building

Recently, eco-friendly buildings have been en vogue; buildings with LEED ratings, solar panels, and natural materials has been the trend as of late. But Osaka’s Organic Building, finished in 1993, has been green for longer than Al Gore’s been driving an electric car.

For the most part, the Organic Building is pretty run-of-the-mill; as far as I can tell, it’s just an office building. But on the outside, it’s a nursery for plants indigenous to Osaka.

With its bright red plates and leafy vegetation, the Organic Building stands out among the drab, white buildings surrounding it.

There are, of course, many other unique buildings around Osaka, but these were my five favorites. Which was your favorite?

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A lot of the time, these skyscrapers seem like something out of Popular Science than a building you’d run across in a major city, and in fact most of these fantastic skyscrapers never even made it past the drawing board, or were even really meant to. Koichi wrote about the absurdly large X-Seed 4000 a few years back, and that’s really just the tip of the iceberg.

So enjoy this Japanese building porn (no, not that kind) as we take a look at some of the tallest, coolest, most absurd proposals.

Aeropolis 2001

Not only did the Aeropolis 2001 have a sweet name (2001? That’s like, the future!), but it was also enormous. The skyscraper was planned to stand at 2000m, or five times the size of the World Trade Centers and about twice as tall as any skyscraper in existence today.

Aeropolis 2001 was planned by the Obayashi Corporation in 1989 to tower over Tokyo Bay, but hasn’t really panned out in the 20+ years since then.

The tower was planned to be a mixed-use building, housing both apartments and offices, with an elevator shuttle that would take 300 people to the top of the tower in about 15 minutes.

I can’t imagine what moving day would be like for people living in a building a mile and a half tall, or how a fire drill would work.

Around the same time that Obayashi announced its designs for the Aeropolis 2001, it also declared its plans for a city on the moon, but it sounds like the Obayashi moon city is just as likely to be built as the Aeropolis 2001.

DIB-200

DIB-200 stands for “Dynamic Intelligent Building” that’s 200 stories tall, a name only the Japanese would use. The DIB-200, planned by the Kajmia Construction Corporation to be built in Tokyo, was envisioned as basically multiple skyscrapers stacked on top of each other and the end result looked kind of like one of those giant trophies you get for winning a pee-wee soccer tournament.

The bottom couple of layers would have offices, the third tier would be for hotels, and the very top tower would be home to some very swanky apartments. A series of super-fast elevators would take people from one level to the next, and in between each level there would be stores and cafes.

Its final height would have been around 800m, slightly shorter than the Burj Khalifa, the current tallest skyscraper in the world. A little less grand and fantastic than some of the other proposed skyscrapers in this post, but one of the more goofy-looking buildings.

Shimizu Super High Rise

The Shimizu Construction Corporation is not only one of the biggest construction companies in the world, but also loves its concept designs. Shimizu has cranked out several conceptual buildings in the last couple of decades for – from what I can tell – no real reason other than to spark people’s imaginations.

In terms of supertall skyscrapers, Shimizu planned a building called the Shimizu Super High Rise, or SSH. At the time it was planned, it was to be the tallest skyscraper in the world and Shimizu wanted it to be the smartest, too. An advanced computer system was supposed to protect the building from fires, earthquakes, and anything else you could throw at it.

But Shimizu didn’t stop there. The company has continued to crank out fantastical designs for buildings and cities in the years since, creating plans for some buildings that might come right out of Blade Runner.

Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid

Shimizu’s coolest conceptual building is probably the MEGA-CITY PYRAMID, a name that only feels right to write in all caps. It’s a giant pyramid made out of giant, floating skyscrapers. It would be 14 times taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza. It would be all held together by transport tubes that would take people from one skyscraper to the next.

The whole thing would sit right in the middle of Tokyo Bay, because it would be easier than buying up the land needed and razing everything to the ground.

Green Float

Just last year, Shimizu announced the concept of a “Green Float,” a system of floating, self-sustaining cities in the ocean, located near the equator.

You can check out a video of a Shimizu designer talking about the project:

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXbYRxl16SA']

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So which one of these is your favorite? Tell us in the comments.

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