Takenaka Corporation

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Takenaka Corporation 株式会社竹中工務店

Type	Private K.K.
Founded	Nagoya, Japan (1610)
Headquarters	Osaka, Japan
Key people	Toichi Takenaka, President and CEO
Industry	Construction, Architecture, Engineering
Revenue	US$9 billion (2005)
Employees	7,743 (2005)
Website	http://www.takenaka.co.jp/

Mido Building, head office of Takenaka Corp. in Chuo-ku, Osaka, Japan

Takenaka Corporation (株式会社竹中工務店, Kabushiki-gaisha Takenaka Kōmuten^?) is a Japanese architecture, engineering, and construction firm.

The company's website claims it to be the oldest firm of that type [1]. Kongō Gumi was substantially older [2], but didn't do architecture or engineering work.

In 1610 Tobei Masataka Takenaka (竹中藤兵衛正高), a shrine and temple carpenter, started a business in Nagoya. The business went on like a family business and built some of the first Western-style buildings during the last half of 19th century, most of them in Nagoya. In 1899 Toemon Takenaka (竹中藤右衛門), 14th generation descendant of the original founder, established a branch office in Kobe and founded Takenaka Corporation as an official company.

The company grew more and more during the 20th century, its capital in 1909 was about ¥100.000, ¥6 million in 1938, ¥1.5 billion in 1959 and ¥50 billion in 1979; nowadays, Takenaka Corporation is a multinational company with offices in 18 different countries. Its president is Toichi Takenaka (竹中統一) (June 2004).

The company is now regarded in Japan as one of the "Big Five" contractors ranked with Kajima, Obayashi, Shimizu and Taisei, and has a long history of designing buildings. The firm has built some of the most important buildings in Japan, including the Tokyo Tower, the Tokyo Dome (the first large-scale stadium with air-supported membrane roof in Japan), the Fukuoka Dome (Japan's first large-scale stadium with retractable roof), and the Kobe Meriken Park Oriental Hotel among others.