Nagoya TV Tower

A 180-meter steel lattice tower completed in 1954 in Sakae, Naka Ward, Nagoya — Japan's first completed television broadcasting tower. Designed by structural engineer Naito Tachu and set within Hisaya Odori Park, it has served since 2021 under the name Chubu Electric Power MIRAI TOWER.

Use

Office tower

Area

Naka Ward, Nagoya

Completed

1954

Height

180 m

Architect

Naito Tachu

Japan’s First Television Tower

In Sakae 1-chome, Naka Ward, Nagoya City — in the greenery of Hisaya Odori Park, which runs down the centre of one of Japan’s widest boulevards — a steel lattice tower rises 180 meters into the sky. Nagoya TV Tower was completed in June 1954, making it the first television broadcasting tower in Japan to be finished and put into service. It was designed by Naito Tachu, a structural engineer so prolific in the design of towers and observation structures that he earned the nickname “Tower Doctor.” His other works include the original Tokyo Tower and Tsutenkaku in Osaka.

The tower’s tubular steel truss construction gives it a slender, functional silhouette — a visual record of mid-twentieth-century engineering confidence. When it opened, the tower broadcast television signals across the Nagoya metropolitan area, one of Japan’s largest industrial regions. The park setting, planned in tandem with the city’s post-war grid reconstruction, placed the tower at the symbolic centre of a wide green corridor stretching through the heart of the city.

From Broadcasting Mast to Urban Landmark

As broadcast technology evolved, television signal transmission gradually shifted to higher-output facilities. Nagoya TV Tower’s primary broadcasting function diminished, while its identity as a civic landmark grew stronger. An observation deck at mid-height offers views across the Naka Ward rooftops and, on clear days, toward Ise Bay.

In 2021, the tower underwent renovation and was renamed Chubu Electric Power MIRAI TOWER under a naming-rights sponsorship. The same year, Hisaya Odori Park was redesigned as a contemporary urban park with cafés, shops, and open lawns gathered around the tower’s base. The renovation reframed a seventy-year-old structure as the centrepiece of a renewed public space, extending its relevance into another era.

Summary

Nagoya TV Tower, completed in 1954 and standing 180 meters in Sakae’s Hisaya Odori Park, holds the distinction of being Japan’s first completed television broadcasting tower. Designed by Naito Tachu, it remains a working landmark — now carrying the name Chubu Electric Power MIRAI TOWER — and anchors a redeveloped urban park in the heart of Nagoya. A visit to Sakae is incomplete without a moment to look up at this steel lattice that has marked the city’s skyline for over seventy years.