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"AQUA METROPOLIS OSAKA 2009" ATTRACTED 1.9 MILLION PEOPLE
2/10/2010

 

Kippo News from Wednesday, January 20, 2009

The grand prize of the "Kansai Vigorous Cultural Bloc Award" for 2009 has been awarded to the Aqua Metropolis Osaka 2009 Executive Committee.

The award is given by the Kansai Vigorous Cultural Bloc Promotion Conference to persons or organizations contributing to brightening and invigorating Japan from the Kansai region through culture.

"Aqua Metropolis Osaka 2009" (photo), an event to showcase Osaka's charms as a water city, incorporated many programs which allowed visitors to have hands-on experiences, such as town building through collaboration and exchanges between artists and residents. The actual number of visitors to the event was 1.9 million, far exceeding the target and making it a movement to send out cultural information.

A special prize went to Kofuku-ji Temple's Statue of Ashura (a national treasure). To mark the 1,300th anniversary of the founding of the temple, the statue was exhibited to the public outside the temple, attracting 940,000 viewers in Tokyo and 710,000 in Fukuoka. After it returned to the temple in Nara, it attracted 250,000 more visitors. The statue shed new light on the great depth of Buddhist and Kansai culture.

The "New Power Award" for promising persons and groups went to four other parties.: Suntory for developing blue roses for the first time in the world; Kobe Tetsujin Project (a nonprofit organization) for erecting a life-size statue of "Tetsujin 28-go" (Iron Man No. 28) as a symbol of reconstruction of earthquake-devastated Kobe; "Hanshin-Namba Line" of Hanshin Electric Railway Co., which opened in March 2009, and the cooking department of Mie Prefectural Oka High School, which operates a restaurant offering dishes using local ingredients and thus contributes to invigorating the region.

For inquiries, please contact Culture Promotion Division, Organization of Kansai Unity.(Japanese Only) Tel:06-4803-5577



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