Explore Osaka

The National Museum of Art, Osaka is a largely underground museum on Nakanoshima island, designed by César Pelli and opened here in 2004 after leaving its first home on the Expo '70 site in Suita. Its collection of about 8,000 works covers Japanese and international art from 1945 onwards, shown in thematic displays that change several times a year.

Osaka Tenmangū is a Shinto shrine in Osaka's Kita Ward dedicated to the scholar Sugawara no Michizane, founded in 949 by order of Emperor Murakami. Destroyed by fire several times, its main hall was rebuilt in 1843. The shrine holds the Tenjin Matsuri every 24–25 July, with a procession of boats on the river.

Osaka Museum of History opened in 2001 in a building by César Pelli & Associates and Nihon Sekkei, joined by an atrium to the NHK Osaka Broadcasting Center opposite Osaka Castle Park. Its four permanent floors trace the city's story from the 7th-century Naniwa Palace, whose excavated remains are shown in the basement, to the modern era.

Shitennō-ji is a Buddhist temple in Tennōji ward that, according to tradition, Prince Shōtoku founded in 593, which makes it one of the oldest officially founded temples in Japan. Its central precinct sets the middle gate, five-storey pagoda, Golden Hall and lecture hall in a single line; the buildings were last rebuilt in 1963. A garden and a treasure hall lie beside it.

Sumiyoshi-taisha in Sumiyoshi ward is the head shrine of the Sumiyoshi shrines across Japan, dedicated to three sea gods and Empress Jingū. Its four main sanctuaries, built in 1810 in the Sumiyoshi-zukuri style that predates mainland influence, are National Treasures; the steeply arched Sorihashi bridge, in its present form from about 1600, leads to them.

A permanent night-time exhibition by the art collective teamLab in Nagai Botanical Garden, in Higashisumiyoshi ward in the south of Osaka, running since 2022. After dark, light and sound installations respond to visitors, wind and rain among the trees, meadows and central lake of the garden, which opened in 1974 and covers 24 hectares.