The Maishima Incineration Plant is a working waste plant whose building was designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser. The operating authority runs free guided tours of the interior, including the 15,000 m³ waste pit and the crane.
Why it's unique
A Hundertwasser building that is also an industrial plant you can tour inside: no other is known in Japan. Kids Plaza Osaka has Hundertwasser interior elements but is not a building by him. It is not a world claim, because Vienna's Spittelau plant is also his.
What you do here is go inside a working incinerator, not just photograph the facade, and see the pit and crane that the striped building wraps.
Before you go
The red and yellow stripes stand for the flames inside and the blue chimney for the bay and the sky; the 186 interior columns are all different.
Book early. Residents report Saturday slots booked two to three months out, but the authority's own page says tours run on weekdays only, so treat Saturday reports as historical and book a weekday. The Hundertwasser sludge centre next door is the companion building.
