Former Owada Bank Head Office

Former Owada Bank Head Office

The Former Owada Bank Head Office (旧大和田銀行本店) in Aioicho, Tsuruga City, Fukui Prefecture, keeps two buildings of the Owada Bank: the main building of 1927, an Important Cultural Property, and the office building of 1901, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Both are owned by Tsuruga City.

The main building was planned, at the wish of the bank's founder, as a bank that also offered the public a dining room, meeting rooms and other facilities (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Two Buildings

The main building is a three-storey steel-framed brick bank with a basement, designed by a team led by Nagase Kyozo of Kyoto Imperial University (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Geometric ornament with classical touches defines it, and it was designated an Important Cultural Property on February 23, 2017.

The office building is a two-storey timber building with a gabled pantile roof, given a Western front by a parapet that makes the roof look flat and rows of tall windows (Agency for Cultural Affairs). A surviving head office of a regional bank that shapes the street, it was registered on February 26, 2021. Each building is described on its own page.

Visiting

The main building is open as the Tsuruga Municipal Museum, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (last entry 4:30 p.m.), closed on Mondays (or the next weekday after a holiday) and from December 29 to January 3; admission is 300 yen, free for high school students and younger (Tsuruga Municipal Museum). No official information on access to the office building was found.