NEKKO, IROHA-GARDEN and HANAMEGURI: the three Association pavilions get nicknames, and NEKKO's six zones are revealed

• At a press conference on 15 September 2026, six months before opening, the GREEN×EXPO Association announced nicknames for the three exhibition facilities it runs itself. The public call drew 3,611 entries across the three.
• Theme Pavilion “NEKKO”: nekko means roots. The name points to roots as the base of a plant and to the building, which borrows its structure from plant forms.
• Horticultural Pavilion “IROHA-GARDEN”: iroha is the traditional Japanese syllabary, used here to mean the basics, joined with niwa, garden. The pavilion covers the gardening culture of the Edo period (1603 to 1868) in a staggered, zigzag building.
• Indoor Exhibition Facility “HANAMEGURI”: hana is flower and meguru means to go around, for displays that change with the seasons and, in the Association’s words, the circulation of flowers, the meeting of people and a link to the future.
• The three names will be used on the site map, on signs and in promotional material.
• Six zones inside NEKKO: a prologue with a concept film; Zone 1, the underground forest, where projection mapping shows the network of roots and fungi, and the real roots of the Miracle Pine of Rikuzentakata, the tree that withstood the 2011 tsunami, are on loan and on display; Zone 2, on the signals plants exchange with insects and fungi, shown with real plants, replicas and film; Zone 3, on the threats facing familiar plants, with hands-on exhibits; Zone 4, on what people get from plants, ending with a large-screen “tree of hope” built from visitors’ photos of flowers grown from seed paper; and an epilogue with a message from a lotus seed that lay dormant for 2,000 years.
• Nippon Life’s contribution, disclosed for the first time: the Platinum Partner provides Zone 3 and an outdoor area next to NEKKO called the botanical garden to keep for the future. Zone 3 has three areas; one example given is that wild ginkgo, so common in city streets in cultivated form, is classed as endangered. Outdoors, QR codes placed by threatened plants tell their story on a smartphone and can be collected as a picture book.
• IROHA-GARDEN: three themes, to know, to feel and to pass on. The “to feel” section recreates an Edo nursery and flower estate and will rotate 37 kinds of traditional garden plants through the seasons. Three renderings were released: the entrance, a sales shelf and an overview.
• Tunku Tunku day on the 19th of every month: from September 2026, the Association will post on social media on the 19th of each month, including photos sent in for its Tunku Tunku fan campaign, and will keep this up during the Expo.
• Partners on stage: BOAT RACE as special cooperation partner; Platinum Partners (500 million yen or more) Macnica, H.I.S., the Osada advertising group, JTB, the Keikyu group and the JR East group; Gold Partners (300 million yen or more) Japan Airlines, the Tokyu group, JR Central and the Hibiya-Kadan group.
• Not stated: whether NEKKO and IROHA-GARDEN will require an exhibit reservation, how long each zone takes, or the rotation schedule inside HANAMEGURI.

Our take

Names make things easier to talk about. In our guide to all the pavilions we have had to call these buildings the Theme Pavilion and the Horticultural Pavilion, by type. From now on the site map and the signs will say NEKKO, IROHA-GARDEN and HANAMEGURI, and the three catch up with the twelve corporate pavilions such as KAJIMA TREE and SOTETSU PARK, which already had names.

One exhibit stands out: the real roots of the Miracle Pine in Zone 1. Inside a room that shows the root and fungus network by projection, there will be the actual roots of the tree that survived the 2011 tsunami in Rikuzentakata. This is the first time the Expo has shown a place where visitors will meet the memory of the earthquake.

Nippon Life’s contribution is also new. The three Platinum Partners we have covered so far, the Osada group, Keikyu and JTB, sponsor promotion. Nippon Life sponsors exhibits. The outdoor garden, where you scan codes to collect plants in a picture book, is the kind of place where families will spend time, we think.

What we still do not know is reservations. Since the announcement of 27 August, some exhibits will need a separate reservation on top of the timed entry ticket, but the list of exhibits is not in this release either. NEKKO is the organiser’s flagship, so we expect it to be on that list.

Tips for visitors

• The three names will be on the site map and signs, so it helps to know them before you go. The full list of pavilions and where they stand is in our pavilion guide.
• Which exhibits need a reservation is not yet published. Timed-entry reservations open on 18 September; read how exhibit reservations work first.
• IROHA-GARDEN rotates 37 kinds of plants through the seasons, so spring and summer visits differ. See how to think about the season pass.
• Check the Association’s social media on the 19th of each month. Who Tunku Tunku is: our mascot profile.