🇯🇵Japan·Seen from outside

Galleria [akka] (ガレリア・アッカ)

Higashi-Shinsaibashi, Chūō, Osaka

Sources checked October 2026

“A concrete box 8 m wide whose interior is organised around an atrium, a curved wall and a maze of stairs.”

Year: 1988
Architect: Tadao Ando
Type: Commercial building with exhibition gallery
Access: Building in downtown Osaka, to be seen from the outside

Completed in 1988 in the Higashi-Shinsaibashi shopping district of Osaka, Galleria [akka] is an exposed-concrete building on a plot 8 m wide and 40 m deep. Inside, an atrium takes up almost half of the volume, set against a curved concrete wall along which most of the stairs climb. An exhibition gallery occupies the top level.

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In depth ≈ 1 min read

History

Galleria [akka] is a commercial building by Tadao Ando, completed in 1988 in the Higashi-Shinsaibashi district, in the heart of Osaka's shopping centre. It stands among low buildings laid out without order, and houses shops together with an exhibition gallery on the top level.

Architecture

The building is a box of exposed concrete on a plot 8 m wide and 40 m deep, a narrow site that called for an unusual solution. The rational façade gives nothing away of what happens inside.

At the centre, an atrium rises from below ground to the top level and takes up almost half of the building's volume. It is bounded by a concrete wall with a 28 m radius, along which most of the stairs coil. A roof of opaque glass, itself curved, caps the atrium and the exhibition rooms of the top level. The composition is plain and austere, yet the tangle of stairs, landings, ramps, balconies and galleries makes moving through it a very complex spatial experience.