Kyocera Dome Osaka (Iwasaki-cho) about 60 years ago and today

History of Kyocera Dome Osaka (Iwasaki-cho)

At the southern edge of Nishi Ward in the City of Osaka, on the west bank where the Kizu River flows south, a round silver roof sits. It is Kyocera Dome Osaka. The roof measures about 200 m across in the aerial photographs, a size that would hold several of the surrounding blocks together. If you go back through the eras to the older aerial photographs, many smaller circles appear in place of this large round roof. They are facilities for making and storing gas. This is a low, flat corner near the mouth of the Kizu River, and being flat land facing the river suited the work of bringing in heavy raw materials by ship. A gas works long occupied this place, where a sizable area could be secured right at the edge of the city.

Rows of round tanks

The oldest photograph, from around 1928, is coarse-grained and shallow in contrast. Even so, on the west bank of the river you can read bright circles lined up in two groups. The northern group is large, and the southern group is somewhat smaller and more numerous. One of the circles measures enough across to cover a whole block of the surrounding houses. White rectangular buildings sit close around the circles, and a thick straight road runs out from the south of the site toward the southwest. The surprise is outside the works: as of 1928, fine rows of houses are already packed tightly. The northwest corner of the frame is especially dense, with the shadows of roofs continuing as black patches. This photograph shows that the works was not built on vacant land in the suburbs but grew up almost at the same time as the city.

In the photograph from around 1936-42, up to five bright circles can be counted. There are two in the north and three in the south, forming a loose row. On the west side of the site, several long buildings with white roofs line up in parallel, facing the same way. South of the site a thick road crosses diagonally, and a bridge spans the river. The surrounding rows of houses are even finer in texture than in the previous era, and almost no surface that looks like vacant land remains.

Five circles shining white

The 1945-50 photograph has extreme contrast: the roads come out white, and the blocks sink into black patches. The circles appear dark in the same positions, and their number stays at around five. A row of long white buildings extends on the west of the site, and a pale, washed-out surface spreads from the west to the southwest. In this era the water system is clearest. You can see at a glance the river flowing south on the east, the stream branching west to its south and the canal joining from the east, surrounding the site on three sides. The outline of work that brings things in by ship and sends them out by ship appears as the shape of the water.

In the 1961-69 photograph, because the whole frame sinks dark, the whiteness of the circles stands out all the more. Five white circles line up north to south in a loose arc, and the split of two in the north and three in the south is the same as in the previous era. East of the circles, white rectangular buildings stand clustered, edging the outline of the site in a square. At the northern edge of the frame, a plaza-like surface edged with a bright arc stands out in white. It is away from the site of the works, and you cannot tell from the photograph alone what the surface is for.

Three photographs in color

1974-78 is the first photograph in color. However, the overall tone is uneven: the wide surface in the lower left is pale lavender, the upper left is blue-green, the upper right takes on brown, and a green band runs vertically along the right edge. The borders between the surfaces run in straight lines. Because the colors do not match, telling things apart is difficult, but you can read two small white circles, four or five circles from dark brown to orange, and reddish-brown rectangular roofs mixed in the site. Across the upper part of the frame, a gently curving band crosses east to west. It looks like a structure passing at a high position, but it falls on a seam between colors, and nothing more can be decided.

In 1979-83 the colors become dense and even, and the seams disappear too. The river sinks almost black, and the layout of the site becomes clear. Two large white circles stand side by side toward the north, and somewhat smaller white circles gather in the southwest corner. If you zoom in, you can see that the four circles in the southwest are placed in a staggered pattern, each casting a dark shadow on its northeast side. Red-orange roofs, blue roofs and large yellowish-brown rectangles are mixed in the site, suggesting that buildings with different roles were gathered together.

In the 1984-86 photograph, the scene toward the north changes. The two large circles have merged into one, with a pale bluish-white ring-shaped outline. Meanwhile the four circles in the southwest corner are all bright, with clearer outlines than in the previous era. A large building with a blue roof lies on the west side. Another thing that catches the eye is the road: the line running from northeast to southwest is clearly thicker and whiter than in the previous era. In the lower part, a wide band crosses the river. Only a sign that the city side has begun to move appears around the outer edge of the works.

The silver roof and the tanks

The old aerial photographs stop at this 1984-86 one, and the next one you can see is today's photograph. The change from the works to the dome took place in the stretch where the photographs break off. It was in 1997 that Osaka Dome opened on the former site. For some time after the opening, the Kintetsu club used it as its home ground, and after the club merger of 2004 it became the home ground of the Orix club. Since 2006 it has been called Kyocera Dome Osaka under a naming rights deal. The name of the nearest subway station also includes the dome, and the name of the ballpark has come to pass directly as the name of the place.

In today's photograph, a round silver roof sits left of the center of the frame. Concentric lines run around the roof in many layers, and fine vertical pleats circle its rim. A large building with a flat, dark-colored roof continues to its northeast. Moving your eye south of the roof, you can see that three round tanks remain. They are the ones in the southwest corner, of which four could be counted from 1979-83 to 1984-86, and their positions have barely moved. The southern edge of the dome presses in just to their north, and the northernmost of the four cannot be found in today's photograph. The northern half of the site has been replaced by the ballpark, and only the southern corner continues the same role in the same place. The phrase "former gas works site" turns into something you can feel when you find these three circles.

This is land that lies right at sea level. The measuring point at the center is 0.4 m, the east 0.2 m, the west -0.1 m and the north -0.2 m, a row of numbers that go back and forth across sea level. The only one that stands apart is the south at 3.7 m, which means a surface higher than its surroundings is on the south side. If you wonder about the relation between the height of the land and where water goes, the City of Osaka's official hazard map has the answer.

About 550 m across the river, an observation point for official land prices (Chika Koji) is placed in the residential area of Kita-Horie. Per square meter, from 2017 to the 2026 publication, the price starts at 455,000 yen and ends at 956,000 yen, a difference of 501,000 yen. The rise is large, but the span that can be traced is itself short, and it begins 20 years after the dome opened. The period when the site moved from the gas works to the dome comes before the record of this observation point.