Grand Ring: The Wooden Wonder of Expo 2025

World’s Largest Wooden Structure Rings the Expo

The Grand Ring at the Yumenoshima site hosting Expo 2025 Osaka Kansai is only now officially opening for its half-year run, but it is already listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest wooden structure in the world. Planned by the Expo’s design producer Fujimoto Sō, this creation embodies the concept “Unity in Diversity” in its character as a single structure composed of wood harvested across Japan.

The Grand Ring encircles the central zones of the Expo site, home to the “signature pavilions” designed by top creators with life-related themes and the national and regional pavilions. The Ring Skywalk atop the structure gives visitors a 12-meter-high walking course two kilometers around, letting them view the pavilions from above to get a sense of the full scope of the Expo site. From the circuit’s highest point, one can see all of central Osaka and Osaka Bay, and on clear days views as far as the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge more than 30 kilometers to the west.

The Grand Ring is the largest wooden structure in the world. (© Nippon.com)

The walkway at the top offers views of the entire Expo site. (© Nippon.com)

Expo visitors can also walk beneath the structure, avoiding rain showers or summer heat while admiring the quality wood and the artisanal Japanese construction techniques that went into its creation.

The hari beams and jointwork beneath the walkway call to mind Japan’s temple and shrine architecture. (© Nippon.com)

A night view of the Ring Skywalk. (© Nippon.com)

Expo mascot Myaku-Myaku stands before the ring. (© Nippon.com)

(Originally published in Japanese. Reporting and text by Uchiyama Ken’ichi and Nippon.com. Photographic assistance by Kuroiwa Masakazu of 96-Box. Banner photo © Nippon.com.)