Gate Tower Building

There’s a road that passes clear through a 16 story building in Osaka, Japan. Sure, there are lots of roads that pass under buildings all over the world, but this is different. The road connects two elevated highways, passing through the Gate Tower building five stories up.

The Gate Tower building is a short walk from Osaka station. 

Standing on the ground under the roadway… it’s even stranger than photos. Easily one of the stranger things I’ve seen in my travels.

The road is suspended on either side (it doesn’t touch the building itself). It’s also covered, a tunnel within a tunnel, if you will.

As you’d probably expect, people who work in the building, and the buildings nearby, don’t seem to give it much thought. I certainly got a few odd looks taking pictures.

Japan is very efficient with their land, and as such often build highways high above the ground.

It’s a better option than taking away all that real-estate for roads.

According to Wikipedia, the owner of the property refused to give right-of-way to the government for the road, so they reached this compromise: The highway and the tower would be built together.

If you’re driving east on the Ikeda route of the Hanshin expressway and want to head towards Umeda, this exit is what passes through the Gate Tower building, floors 5, 6, and 7.

I’m not the only one who finds this oddity peculiar. Here’s a video of what it looks like to pass through on the road.

Though known in the west as the Gate Tower building, the current name is actually TKP Garden City Umeda Osaka (g-city.net) after the current lease owner, TKP.

After getting photos from every angle I could I walked over to the exceptionally cool-looking Umeda Sky Building, which looks not unlike the Recognizer vehicles from Tron.

From here you can get a great view of Osaka and TKP Garden City.