Tennoji Park and TEN-SHIBA

Tennoji Park stretches across the eastern part of the land where a national industrial exhibition once welcomed visitors. Later, a substantial share of the green grounds was closed off by a paid fence, and the entrance from the station side was cut off from neighboring streets. Now a broad grassy field lies here: preserved trees stand beside low wooden structures, and a direct route remains between them toward the zoo and art museum. Cafés and shops are arranged around the edges, while on the lawn you can simply be, without buying anything or showing a ticket.

On the opening day of TEN-SHIBA, October first, two thousand fifteen, invited elementary schoolchildren were let onto the lawn. They quickly forgot about the ceremony: they raced each other, rolled on the grass, and chased one another. The project's two authors watched them—architect Teruhisa Miyajima and urban-development specialist Yoshiharu Hashioka. Before construction, they had shown the client scenes like these in drawings. Now the children acted them out without prompting.

Tennoji Park itself appeared on the eastern half of the grounds where a national industrial exhibition was held in nineteen oh three. The city opened the park six years later. But after another exhibition, this time in nineteen eighty-seven, a substantial part of the grounds was fenced off and made subject to an admission charge. By the beginning of the new century, the entrance area had become outdated, and the fence separated it from the station and neighboring streets.

In two thousand fourteen, Osaka officials announced a competition. The future operator was required to eliminate the admission charge, bring visitors back, and create a lawn of at least two thousand five hundred square meters. The winner had to pay for the redevelopment and maintenance itself, pay the city annually for use of the land, and recoup the investment through rent from cafés, shops, and other establishments. The contract was for twenty years. For Kintetsu, this was its first experience managing a park; for Hashioka and Miyajima, the construction commission existed only if their proposal won.

Miyajima prepared several options. In one, he cleared the middle of buildings almost entirely and spread the grass as far as the site allowed. Hashioka chose this very design, the simplest one, and persuaded Kintetsu's management to submit it to the competition. After the win, Miyajima limited the buildings at the edges to two stories, preserved the old trees, and left a straight open strip through the center toward the zoo and art museum. In the end, the lawn covered about seven thousand square meters—almost three times the competition minimum.

The company named the entrance area TEN-SHIBA: a short name in which grass—shiba in Japanese—became the main sign of the renewed park. About four million two hundred thousand people came here in the first year, three and a half times the previous figure. In the first ten years, almost forty-nine million six hundred thousand.

The trace of that decision now occupies the largest part of the entrance area itself. It is a long lawn with low wooden buildings along its edges. Miyajima drew it for the competition as a free space among the establishments, and the schoolchildren on opening day were the first to show what could be done here: choose your own activity and not buy an admission ticket.