Nagoya City Higashiyama Botanical Garden Greenhouse Front

Japan's Oldest Surviving Public Conservatory

The Front Conservatory of Nagoya City Higashiyama Botanical Garden (名古屋市東山植物園温室前館, also written Nagoya-shi Higashiyama Shokubutsuen Onshitsu Zenkan) is a glasshouse in Tashiro-chō, Chikusa Ward, Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture, completed in 1936 (Shōwa 11) and designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan on 19 December 2006.

Nagoya City's Architecture Section drew it up, with Shibata Yoshinobu, Kumon Katsutoshi and Ichien Toshirō among the designers, and Kitagawa-gumi carried out the construction. The building opened to the public on 3 March 1937, the day the botanical garden itself opened. People at the time called it the Crystal Palace of the East, and it remains the oldest public conservatory still standing in Japan.

The plan is symmetrical and easy to read from outside. A tall Palm Room occupies the centre, with a porch projecting from the middle of its south front. A Fern Room extends to the east and a Succulent Room to the west, and each is linked back to the centre by a low Flower Room. Ridge heights step down accordingly: 12.4 metres over the Palm Room, 6.7 over the Fern and Succulent Rooms, 4.8 over the two Flower Rooms. Building area comes to 595.98 square metres, with the whole running about 66 metres east to west.

Designated for Its Place in Building History

The designation criterion applied here is high historical value, and the history in question is technical rather than stylistic. This is one of the earliest fully realised steel-framed conservatories in Japan, and the main members of its steel frame were joined entirely by electric arc welding, which makes it one of the earliest all-welded buildings in the country.

That deserves a moment's thought. In the mid-1930s, riveting was still the normal way to join structural steel in Japan. Rivets need gusset plates, overlaps and clearance for the hammer. Welding removes all of that, and in a building whose entire purpose is to let light through, the difference is not academic: thinner members mean fewer shadows on the plants below.

The structural logic runs from bottom to top. Foundations and the low perimeter wall are reinforced concrete. Above that, angle sections are assembled into truss arches which form a hipped profile with a broken slope over the Palm, Fern and Succulent Rooms; the Flower Rooms use a simpler gabled assembly of the same angle stock. Glass wraps the whole frame. According to the original drawings, purlins and rafters of angle section were laid outside the truss arches, copper gutters and waterproof strips fitted to the rafters, five-millimetre glass laid on top, and copper caps clamped over the joints.

Not everything is original fabric. The steel sashes have been replaced with aluminium, and the glass roof has been rebuilt in aluminium above rafter level. Shading screens now sit outside the roof glass of both Flower Rooms.

Eight Years Closed, Then Reopened

The conservatory shut in February 2013 for a programme of conservation repair that ran through to fiscal 2020. Rather than patching, the city worked with the Agency for Cultural Affairs toward returning the building to its 1937 appearance, and seismic strengthening was carried out at the same time. It reopened on 23 April 2021, together with the Italianate formal garden in front of it.

Moving the plants out was its own problem. An Indian rubber tree in the Palm Room stood eight metres tall; the doors are between 1.5 and 1.6 metres wide and no more than 2.6 metres high. Branches were cut back and roots pared before it could leave the building, and the same care went into every specimen worth saving.

What you see inside now follows the original interior arrangement. The Palm Room has an artificial hill at its centre, with concrete rockwork running along the low wall from the north side round to east and west. The Fern Room repeats that rockwork and has a shallow water table along its west and south sides, where a tank once occupied the middle. The Succulent Room uses planting beds at the centre and along the north, with raised stands around the other three sides. A fountain sits at the centre of the East Flower Room, flower beds along the north and south. In the West Flower Room, look at the middle of the low wall on the east side: a mosaic is set into it.

Come out of the porch and the view back is the one people photograph. The building faces south across a formal garden with a mirror pond, and on still days the glass and its reflection make a pair.

Planning a Visit

The conservatory sits inside Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens, so garden admission covers it. The gardens open from 9:00 to 16:50, with last entry and last ticket sales at 16:30, and close on Mondays (the next non-holiday weekday when Monday falls on a public holiday) and from 29 December to 1 January. Adult admission is 500 yen for high school students and above, rising to 800 yen on 1 October 2026; junior high school students and younger enter free. A combined ticket with Higashiyama Sky Tower is also sold.

Take the Higashiyama subway line to Hoshigaoka Station and leave by exit 6, about seven minutes on foot; this is the closer gate for the botanical garden. Higashiyama-kōen Station, exit 3, is three minutes from the zoo side but a long walk across the grounds. Photography is unrestricted for personal use. The adjoining Rear Conservatory closed in May 2025 for rebuilding and is not expected back before fiscal 2030, and the Front Conservatory itself closes for short maintenance periods, so checking the official notices before you travel is worthwhile.