Riverwalk Kitakyushu is a prestigious commercial complex, 10 minutes walk from Kokura Station, the gateway to northern Kyushu, and surrounded by the Kokura Castle gardens, Katsuyama Park and Yasaka Shrine. Facing Murasaki River, it was surrounded by nature and with its own rich greenery and history, is important in terms of culture, art, dispatching of information, and commerce. Riverwalk Kitakyushu was opened as part of the Kitakyushu Renaissance policy on April 19, 2003.

It’s a new cultural mixed-use center. Riverwalk Kitakyushu project is to create a huge town complex, a place for the high and popular arts, incorporates Kitakyushu Performing Arts Center which consists of small-medium-large halls, conference facilities, Asahi Newspaper and NHK Broadcasting, retail and entertainment venues, Deco City which is the largest shopping mall in northern Kyushu, a cinema complex, the head offices of Zenrin Co. and the Asahi Shinbun (West area), and a branch of the Kitakyushu city art museum. It also establishes a new symbol of cultural and civic pride in the city of Kitakyushu, Japan.

Kitakyushu occupies an important site, an ancient crossroads that connected the islands of Japan and the continent of Asia. Yet, the city, formed in 1963, itself lacked connectivity. Riverwalk Kitakyushu creates a unified identity for the city.

In addition to physically connecting the traditional retail district with Kokura Castle and Katsuyama Park, the Riverwalk Kitakyushu symbolically unites the city through a collection of five iconic forms with five different colors (yellow, red, white, brown and black), representing each of its districts. The geometrical shape separation is also the strategy to mitigate the oppressive feeling of the surrounding huge building volume. With distinguished design, Jerde Partnership wants to create vibrant, energetic spaces informed by the unique culture and spirit of the people they serve, to bring lasting social, cultural and economic value for the local communities.

Visitors enter from the riverside through the Energy Court with its dome-shaped atrium. Proceeding along the Urban Walk, which is surrounded by shops, visitors enter the main street, Canyon Walk, with its distinctive inclined red walls. In the basement of the building, as in standard feature of Japanese department stores there is incorporation of a grocery store and a vast array of specialized restaurants and fast food stalls, plus the omiyage (souvenir) shops.

The yellow section is a combination of parking garage, shopping areas, a movie theater and a game center with video games and assortment of coin machines. The red section includes Kitakyushu Performing Arts Center which able to seat about 2000 people. The brown section has shopping and salons on the bottom three floors, and the top contains the local NHK studios, Japan’s national broadcaster. The black section, as with the others, has shopping on the lower floors and Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art and offices above.

In the face of tough economic times, Riverwalk Kitakyushu was fully leased before its opening. It has also received praise from the local community and commendation from abroad, including the 2001 American Architecture Award given by the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture.

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