History

Founded in 1922 by Kaneshige Nomura (grandfather of Kotaro Nomura, the third president) as "Nomura Tent Shokai" in Taisho Ward, Osaka City. The company actively introduced new technologies in the development of its products. Among these, the "Modern Tent," developed in 1929 as a camping tent, was a product that used an inflated bicycle tube as a beam, covered with cotton fabric, and was the prototype for today's air-beam type of air membrane structure. However, the company was forced to close down in 1943 due to the promulgation of the Enterprise Improvement Law following the escalation of World War II.

In 1946, after the defeat in the war, Ryotaro Nomura (father of Kotaro Nomura) rebuilt the business as "Nomura Sewing Works" with a single foot-pedal sewing machine and a pair of scissors. The following year, in 1947, the company was reorganized as a joint-stock corporation, and its name was changed to the current Taiyo Kogyo Corporation. In the same year, Hiromasa Nomura (brother of Ryotaro Nomura) joined the business and expanded it to the manufacture and installation of interior decorations, theater and cinema curtains and curtains, and eventually, with the birth of new synthetic fibers, the company began to manufacture large tents. The first of these was the large tent (length: 37.8 m, width: 46.8 m) for the Kinoshita Circus, which was designed and manufactured in 1956, and several other large tents were completed after much trial and error.

In addition to manufacturing the tops for Daihatsu Motor Co.'s three-wheeled midget, Taiyo Kogyo's vinylon sheets for coarse bedding were used in large quantities to restore a large levee breach caused by Typhoon Isewan in 1959, playing a pioneering role in the development of geotextiles in Japan.

Anticipating the trend toward containers in transportation, the company has started development and sales of flexible container bags (product name: TAICON) and anti-pollution membranes (product name: Silt Protector) to prevent the spread of pollution in marine civil engineering projects, thereby expanding its business base.

As a result, various tent structures (membrane structures) were created at the 1970 World Exposition in Osaka, Japan, as a means of large-space construction. Unprecedented tent structures were created, including the "U.S. Pavilion," the world's first low-rise air membrane structure, and the Fuji Group Pavilion, a saddle-shaped dome (air beam system) made by connecting 16 tubes 4 meters in diameter and 60 meters long. The "U.S. Pavilion," in particular, was later adopted as the structural system for the huge stadiums that became popular in the United States.

In 1987, under the provisions of Article 38 of the Building Standard Law, membrane structural buildings based on the technical standards for specific membrane structural buildings were generally approved, and their use as permanent buildings began in Japan. The Tokyo Dome (designed by Nikken Sekkei Ltd. and Takenaka Corporation; built by Takenaka Corporation), for which we manufactured and constructed the membrane roof, was completed in 1988, and since then, membrane structures have been used for covered grounds in snowy regions, including the Akita Sky Dome (designed and built by Kajima Corporation) in 1990.

In 1992, Birdair, the largest manufacturer of membrane structures in the U.S., became a wholly owned subsidiary of the company, and since the bursting of the bubble economy in Japan, the company has expanded its base of operations to Asia, Oceania, and Europe. In China, the company has been particularly active in the business, starting with the grandstand at the Shanghai International Circuit, and has established a design, manufacturing, and construction system in China. Meanwhile, in Japan, we manufactured and installed the roofs of stands at Saitama Stadium 2002 and five other stadiums for the 2002 Soccer World Cup, which was co-hosted by Japan and South Korea, and our achievements were highly evaluated. In subsequent tournaments in Germany, South Africa, and Brazil, we participated in projects in each country.