page_title: National Diet Building
section_title: Chambers of the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors
hierarchical_section_title: National Diet Building / Main facilities in the National Diet Building / Chambers of the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors
caption_attribution_description: English: The Diet of Japan in Tokyo
context_page_description: The National Diet Building is the building where both houses of the National Diet of Japan meet. It is located at Nagatachō 1-chome 7–1, Chiyoda, Tokyo.
  Sessions of the House of Representatives take place in the left wing and sessions of the House of Councillors in the right wing.
  The Diet Building was completed in 1936 and is constructed out of purely Japanese materials, with the exception of the stained glass, door locks, and pneumatic tube system.
context_section_description: These large halls are usually called the “main chambers” and are located on the 2nd floor of each House building with a ceiling that opens up to the 3rd floor. The ceiling is partly made from stained glass which lets in sunlight, so the ceiling lights are kept turned off unless there is a plenary assembly in the chamber. The floor is structured in the so-called “continental” fashion; the floor forms a fan shape with the chairman and the podium at its center, and member seats are allotted to each parliamentary group in accordance to their size.
  The chairman sits in the center accompanied by the secretary general on his right. The podium stands in front of the chairman's seat, and the stenographer sits beneath the podium. Two rows of seats stretch on both sides of the chair, the front row for cabinet members (the seat closest to the chairman is for the Prime Minister) and the back row for the Diet administrative staffs.
  The Diet members’ seats are designated by the chairman at the beginning of a Diet session but can be switched during a session if necessary. The House of Representatives makes it a custom to allocate larger parliamentary groups to the chairman's right. In other words, the majority party will sit on the furthest right to the chairman followed by the second largest party, and independents sit in the far left. In the House of Councillors, by contrast, the largest parliamentary group sits in the center with smaller groups on either side. Within a parliamentary group, members who have been elected the fewest times are seated in the front rows closest to the chairman, while those with a longer record as politicians sit in the back rows. Each seat has a number and a name plate with white letters in a black background.
  In the House of Councillors, the Emperor's throne is at the top of the stairs behind the chairman's seat which will be removed in preparation for the opening ceremony. As a legacy of the historic custom to invite the Emperor to the Chamber of the House of Peers in the opening ceremony of the Imperial Diet, even today the opening ceremonies invite the Emperor to the Chamber of the House of Councillors, a successor of the House of Peers, where the Emperor makes his opening statement from his throne. In the Chamber of the House of Councillors, the microphones are only for the chairman and the podium, while in the Chamber of the House of Representatives, they are also given to the secretary general who report voting results and the Diet member in charge of making procedural motions.
  There are currently 242 members of the House of Councillors but 460 seats in the Chamber as members of the House of Representatives also attend the opening ceremony held at the Chamber. The number of seats, however, is still not enough to accommodate the entire 722 members of the Diet, so at the opening ceremony Diet members are sometimes seen standing in the aisles or space in the back of the floor.
  Both Chambers prohibit Diet members from entering without a jacket and a member badge based on precedent (identification cards are accepted since 2005). No exceptions are allowed to this rule; then-Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda once attempted to enter the Chamber while forgetting to wear his badge and was halted by the guards, the situation of which was resolved when Fukuda hastily borrowed a member badge from a nearby Diet member, Yoshiro Mori.
  Parenthetically, either House restricts its members from wearing hats, coats, scarfs, or carrying umbrellas or walking sticks without permission from the chairman. Smoking is also prohibited. Diet members are also forbidden to read newspapers and literatures other than reference materials.
caption: House of Councillors
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