History of construction of the Kansai-kan
October 1998: Construction started.
Groundbreaking ceremony
On November 30, 1998, the groundbreaking ceremony was held by the NDL and the Kinki Regional Construction Bureau of the Ministry of Construction on the construction site at Seika-Nishikizu District in Kansai Science City (Seika-cho, Soraku-gun, Kyoto). The ceremony was attended by some 250 people from the Diet, government departments, libraries, the NDL Kansai-kan committee members, local governments, related organizations and the media.
Outline of the construction process
Excavation
After the groundbreaking ceremony, excavation work continued for more than one year, transforming the site into a huge rectangular hole 25 meters deep and measuring 110 meters from north to south and 130 meters from east to west. As the site slopes up to the south, some 500,000 cubic meters of soil had to be removed.
Building framework
Upon completion of the excavation, the building framework was started in April 2000. In October, the skylight roof was attached and in November, all the steel framework was completed and a traditional roof-raising ceremony was held.
In December, a ceremony was held to introduce the new building method ("wake-up method") in which the steel frame wall of 127m width by 28m height was divided into two sections, each of which was raised by wire ropes.
On March 20,2002, although part of the external work remained to be completed, the building was handed over to the NDL by the Kinki Regional Development Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.