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Tourist Attractions and Experiences

Oebashi Bridge

This is one of the Five Bridges of Dojima River constructed in the Genroku period, Edo’s golden era. The present bridge was planned and built from the results of a design competition held in the early 1930s.

Spanning the Dojima as it flows past the north side of Osaka City Hall, this bridge was originally constructed in the Genroku period (1688–1703) as one of the Five Bridges of Dojima River following the development of Dojima’s urban area. The name of the bridge hearkens back to a place written of by the poets of the Man’yoshu (759 A.D.) In 1910, the bridge was replaced with an iron structure owing to the opening of the city tramway. Its present form stems from the First Urban Planning Project, when the city committed to improvement work for both Oebashi Bridge and Yodobashi Bridge on the south side of Nakanoshima. In a rare occurrence for the Taisho period (1912–1926), however, the city held a design competition for the renovations, with designs and proposals from across the country coming in as submissions. The chosen design was the work of one Tatsuo Otani: His design called for an 81.5-meter long, 37.0-meter wide four-span arch deck bridge featuring solid spandrels and constructed of steel-framed and -reinforced concrete. Construction began in 1930 and concluded in 1935. Since then, the bridge has undergone two rounds of repair, though the construction remains almost identical to the original design. The name plaque on the bridge was penned by none other than Hajime Seki, the Mayor of Osaka from 1923–1935.

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