The author proposes preserving Sosuke Fujimoto’s Grand Roof Ring, Guest Pavilion, and Forest as national treasures and creating the world’s finest botanical garden within. Drawing on personal recovery from illness and years spent photographing Kyoto Botanical Garden, the article envisions a year-round attraction of seasonal flowers, unparalleled views, and sustainable design. Accessible and inspiring, it would be a lasting legacy for Osaka and a destination for visitors from across Japan and the world.

The Turntable of Civilization: An Eternal Treasure for the Osaka–Kansai Expo 2025 Site — Preserving Sosuke Fujimoto’s Grand Roof Ring, Guest Pavilion, and Forest as National Treasures, and Creating the World’s Finest Botanical Garden Within

Last night, an inspiration came to me about how to use the Osaka–Kansai Expo 2025 site after the event—an insight befitting The Turntable of Civilization, a place where today’s Kūkai and Nobunaga would dwell.
I had already decided that once summer arrived—with its perfectly clear skies, the ideal season for photography—I would visit the Grand Roof Ring to take photos overlooking Osaka Bay and the city.
Because of that plan, I missed the chance to buy a season pass, though it is still possible to purchase one and I am considering it.

On August 2, the TV Tokyo (Osaka) program Shin Bi no Kyojin (“The New Giants of Beauty”) featured Sosuke Fujimoto’s “Grand Roof Ring of the Osaka–Kansai Expo,” where expo specialists from around the world unanimously praised the Ring:
“It should all be preserved” (Western participants).
“Japanese construction technology is amazing—only the Japanese could build this” (participants from Asia and Africa).

The Grand Roof Ring—one of Fujimoto’s life’s work creations—together with the Guest Pavilion and the Forest, which also embodies his deep creative vision, must be preserved as national treasures.
Last night I wrote as much and shared it with the world.

It was after that that the inspiration came to me: the ultimate, best idea for permanently preserving this site.

In May 2011, I was diagnosed with a serious illness and told by my attending physician that my chance of survival was only 25%. I spent eight months hospitalized at Kitano Hospital, a major hospital affiliated with Kyoto University’s medical school. Thanks to the excellence of my junior doctors and nurses, I made a complete recovery and was discharged on December 16, 2011.

The following year, 2012, I spent 300 out of the 365 days visiting Kyoto Botanical Gardens, directly connected to Kitayama Station on the Kyoto Subway Karasuma Line. Throughout spring, summer, autumn, and winter, I photographed the seasonal plants and flowers, wild birds such as kingfishers, butterflies such as the great Mormon and swallowtails, geckos, and various other insects.

This botanical garden was truly the best. Every day brought fresh encounters—no two days were alike.
There were even months when I purchased a JR commuter pass from Shin-Osaka to Kyoto Station to make my frequent visits more convenient.

One major reason I became so enamored with Kyoto Botanical Gardens was its excellent accessibility: I could leave my home and arrive at the gardens in just 50 minutes, with no fatigue thanks to its direct connection to the station.

A few years ago, I learned of another superb botanical garden in Osaka—Nagai Botanical Garden. The first thing that impressed me there was the hydrangea garden, arguably the finest in Japan, with its rich variety and beauty. While photographing a particularly vivid pink hydrangea at close range, a lizard appeared before me. It was a miraculous moment, resulting in a photograph whose beauty and charm—especially the lizard’s eye—were beyond compare. We gazed at each other for a long time, a truly blissful time.

Another point of admiration was that its rose garden bloomed even in midwinter. This spring, I experienced its true essence: a spectacular rose garden rivaling, and perhaps surpassing, Kyoto Botanical Gardens and Osaka’s Nakanoshima Rose Garden.

The Osaka–Kansai Expo 2025 site, with its vast grounds, would make an unparalleled botanical garden. Imagine a plum grove, and in spring, a thousand cherry trees viewed from atop the Grand Roof Ring—a spectacle rivaling the famed “Thousand Cherry Trees of Yoshino,” yet far more accessible. From my home, it would take only 50 minutes via subway, with a direct connection to Maishima Station. For Osaka residents and visitors from other prefectures or abroad, access would be equally convenient, with attractions like the Kaiyukan Aquarium and the Osaka Bay sightseeing ship Santa Maria nearby.

Nagai Botanical Garden is wonderful, but its 10-minute walk from the station can be tiring in summer, and its surroundings are not especially enjoyable. In contrast, the Expo site’s Grand Roof Ring offers spectacular views of the sea, sky, and clouds, making it the ultimate grand botanical garden. Throughout the year, seasonal flowers—plums, cherries, tulips—would fill the grounds, and in autumn it would become Osaka’s top spot for autumn foliage.

Thus, last night, I conceived the ultimate plan for the Expo site: to create, under national and Osaka prefectural/municipal stewardship, the world’s finest botanical garden, enclosed within the world’s largest wooden Grand Roof Ring—the greatest wooden structure in human history. Many national pavilions at Expo 2025 promote sustainability; this botanical garden would embody that spirit as a permanent achievement, drawing visitors from across Japan and around the world to ascend the Ring, stroll through the gardens below, and spend the day immersed in beauty.

Suntory’s superb water attraction and the “Ao and Night Rainbow” parade could continue as paid events. The gardens would feature reasonably priced, delicious restaurants and rest areas with souvenir shops.
Japan, Osaka Prefecture, and Osaka City should embrace this as a genuine, not merely rhetorical, sustainable project: a National Osaka–Kansai Expo 2025 Memorial Park, with the Grand Roof Ring in full bloom—a true “Sukiyanen, Osaka.”