電力ビル, Music venue in Sendai, Japan
Denryoku Building is a mixed-use building on Nibancho-dori in Aoba-ku, Sendai, completed with nine floors above ground and two below, with about 37,000 square metres of total floor area. Its facade is a grid of identical rectangular windows in light grey concrete, with solid panels at the top, base and right side, and signage reading "電力ビル" on the roof. Inside are offices, shops and the Denryoku Hall concert hall.
The Denryoku Building opened on 4 August 1960 as a mixed-use complex with offices, a hall, a hotel and rented rooms, built during the hundred-shaku height limit era. With about 37,000 square metres over nine floors above ground and two below, it was then the largest building in northern Japan and a landmark on the street of two-storey buildings. Annexes followed in 1967 and 1972; Tohoku Electric Power's head office stayed until May 2002.
The building's name comes from its owner, Tohoku Electric Power, whose headquarters occupied it until May 2002. Its Denryoku Hall, reached from the 7th floor, has hosted popular and classical concerts, folk song, Japanese dance, theatre and ballet, and was long among the oldest private halls in central Sendai. At the Green Plaza entrance on the first floor stands a sculpture by Antoine Bourdelle.
The building faces Higashi-Nibancho-dori, and the Denryoku Biru-mae bus stop serves city, highway and JR buses right outside. From Hirose-dori subway station's west exit 3 it is about a one-minute walk; from JR Sendai station's west exit, about eleven minutes. General parking is limited to three cars.
The red Italian marble on the seventh-floor elevator hall wall contains ammonite fossils, and people once visited the building just to see them. The hall itself is a single-floor structure: the entrance is on the seventh floor, but seating rises through the eighth and the ceiling reaches the ninth. It opened with 1,380 seats, reduced to 1,000 in the 2002 renovation.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 94,049 contributors worldwide.