Yokohama Specie Bank Building in Japan

Yokohama Specie Bank Building

Yokohama Specie Bank Building

No. 129, Yanjiang Avenue, Jiang’an District, at the intersection with Nanjing Road

Built ?–1921

National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit

When you stand on Yanjiang Avenue and look up at the huge rectangular portico opening at the corner of the building, its grotesquely classical opulence can’t help but make you sigh — Japan’s learning from Western Europe is so thorough that you can feel this “prostration” of the East toward the West — a neoclassical building more European than Europe itself.

The Yokohama Specie Bank was established after the Meiji Restoration, with its headquarters in Yokohama, and was known as “an important wing of Japan’s capitalist development.” In 1894, it opened a branch at the current site in Hankou’s British Concession. In 1921, the old building was demolished and a four-story structure was erected, designed by British architect H. Hyams of the firm Jamieson & Co., with a floor area of 5,632 square meters. The main entrance is located at the corner, and the two facades along the streets feature Ionic double-column colonnades. Some Japanese elements are incorporated in the interior decoration.

The most unique aspect of the entire building is how the architect utilized the corner where the two avenues meet, using the grand columns on the southeast-facing facades along the street as the main entrance. In 2006, it was listed as a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit as part of the group of modern buildings in Hankou.

It is currently used by the Provincial International Trust and Investment Corporation.