The Wind Phone
Itaru Sasaki · Ōtsuchi, Iwate, Japan · 風の電話 (Kaze no Denwa)
Photo: Matthew Komatsu / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0), as also published on Street Art Utopia.
In a corner of his garden on a hill above Funakoshi Bay in Ōtsuchi, garden designer Itaru Sasaki set up a white phone booth with a black rotary telephone that is not connected to any line. After the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, people came from all over Japan to speak through it to people they had lost. Source Source Checked
Seen 2023: a research article published in 2024 shows the garden and the inside of the booth in photographs captioned 2023. Source Checked
💡 4 things to know
- A phone with no lineThe black rotary-dial telephone inside the booth is not connected to any line. Source Checked
- First for a cousinSasaki placed the disconnected telephone there to speak with a cousin who had died; the booth later became a place where many people talk to their own lost loved ones. Source Source Reported
- When was it built?J-CAST wrote in 2014 that Sasaki had the idea in November 2010, that building was under way when the earthquake struck, and that the booth was completed in April 2011; a Reuters feature carried by the Japan Times says he built it a few months before the disaster. Source Source Conflicting
- Visitors from all over JapanReuters, in a feature carried by the Japan Times, says the phone now attracts thousands of visitors from all over Japan. Source Reported
📍 Where it is
In Itaru Sasaki’s garden in the Kirikiri district of Ōtsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, on high ground overlooking Funakoshi Bay. Source Checked
Opens a Google Maps search for the Wind Phone in Ōtsuchi; we did not check the exact position or Street View.
🗓️ Sightings
- 201425 Apr
Report on the white booth · J-CAST
- 201831 May
Photographed in the garden · Wikimedia Commons
- 2023
Garden and booth photographed · Open Cultural Studies
Green stamps mark dated photographs; amber stamps mark dated records and reports. Publication dates are not camera dates.
🗞️ In the sources
“線のつながっていないダイヤル式の黒電話があります。”
Inside is a black rotary-dial telephone that is not connected to any line.
“The phone now attracts thousands of visitors from all over Japan.”
✅ The facts
- Built
- Completed April 2011 (J-CAST) or a few months before March 2011 (Reuters via the Japan Times) Source Source Conflicting
- Status today
- Not known; newest dated photographs 2023 Source Unconfirmed
🔗 Related
All sources & image credits
- J-CAST: 「風の電話」 report (25 Apr 2014)
- Reuters (Mari Saito), via The Japan Times: Tohoku tsunami phone booth
- Clorinda Sissi Galasso, “Mnemotope as a Safe Place: The Wind Phone in Japan”, Open Cultural Studies 8 (2024)
- Wikimedia Commons: Ōtsuchi wind phone 4, 31 May 2018
- Image: Matthew Komatsu / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, as also published on Street Art Utopia; a 16:9 share image was made from it.
Last checked: 4 November 2026. How we verify art