This paper aims to discusses a history of modern buildings along Midosuji Boulevard in relation to its urban background. Midosuji is the symbol street in Osaka, and regarded very important for revitalization of Osaka City.
Midosuji is a national road, about 4 km long and about 44m wide. It's passes through the central area of Osaka from JR Osaka station to Nankai Namba station. Midosuji was planned in the first urban planning of Osaka City in 1920's, and specified as the first grade road in the plan. The construction was started in 1926, and completed in 1937.
This paper deals with the about 1km long of 4km of Midosuji, which is regarded to represent the image of Midosuji best. In this area, 50 buildings were built between 1920 and 1970, from the construction of the street to the beginning of the control about its townscape preservation by Osaka City.
The history can be divided into 3 periods from the viewpoints of architectural characteristics, number and arrangement of the buildings.
1) 1920-1945
In the 1st period, the construction of buildings were limited because of the influence of the war. 12 buildings were built mainly in 2 zones, Yodoyabashi area (north side) and Hommachi area (south side). Yodoyabashi area consists mainly of financial company buildings like bank and insurance companies, designed in the classical style, on the other hand Hommachi area consists of commercial company buildings, designed in popular style like Spanish. Its tendency stems from the history and its characteristic of the land which was developed in the early modern (Toyotomi and Edo) period as Semba town.
2) 1945-1955
In the 2nd period which corresponds to the post-war reconstruction, 10 of 12 buildings were built on the east side of Midosuji, and 9 were bank buildings. Many buildings had granite wall, and emphasized vertical line as the transformation from classicism to modernism. The east side arrangement stems from a difference of lots on the blocks. East side lots were easier to acquire than the west, because the west side lots were too subdivided historically to get in a short period. And banks could build their own buildings preceding other types of company by the then government's finance policies.
3) 1955-1970
In the 3rd period, 26 buildings were built on all blocks along Midosuji in the high economic growth. They were planned in the full size of the then architectural restriction, growing demand for utilization of the city center. Consequently, Midosuji had possessed the townscape with completed wall line and skyline. By the industrialization of building construction, curtain-wall system appeared on the wall of 8 buildings, on the other hand old construction of tile wall was still used for 10 buildings.
