Former Sapporo Court of Appeals Building

The Former Sapporo Court of Appeals Building

Look up at the parapet of the grey stone building at the west end of Odori Park and you will find three carvings: a blindfolded figure of Justice, a pair of scales, and a sword. They are the marks of what this place once was. From 1926 until 1973 the building served as the Sapporo Court of Appeals, the highest court for the northern region under Japan's prewar judicial system, roughly equivalent to today's High Court.

Today it is open to the public as the Sapporo City Archive Museum (Sapporo-shi Shiryōkan), and admission is free. In December 2020 the building was designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan, the country's second-highest level of heritage protection for an architectural work.

What makes it stand out is its material. The walls are built of Sapporo soft stone, a pale volcanic tuff quarried in the city's Ishiyama district, and the building is among the largest surviving structures made from it.

A Courthouse for Japan's Northern Frontier

Under the legal system that operated before 1947, a kōsoin, or court of appeals, sat between the district courts and the Great Court of Cassation in Tokyo. Eight were established across the country: in Sapporo, Sendai, Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Hiroshima, Takamatsu, and Nagasaki. Of the eight buildings, only two still stand. One is the former Nagoya court of appeals, now the Nagoya City Archives; the other is here in Sapporo.

The court reached Sapporo by a roundabout route. In 1905 the jurisdiction of the Hakodate court was reorganised when Aomori Prefecture was removed from it, which set off a long debate about where the northern court should sit. The decision to move it to Sapporo came in the Taishō era. Construction began in 1922 and the building was completed in August 1926.

The design came from the Construction Section of the Ministry of Justice in Tokyo. The drawings are thought to be the work of Hamano Saburō, under chief engineer Yamashita Keijirō, with detailed work carried out by the ministry's own technicians. When the courts moved to new premises, the city took the building over and opened it as the Sapporo City Archive Museum on 3 November 1973.

Why It Became an Important Cultural Property

The 2020 designation rested on the building's value as a record of how Japanese architecture modernised in the 1920s, in both its appearance and its structure.

The exterior follows a Renaissance vocabulary of symmetry and classical proportion, but it also carries traces of Secession, the early-twentieth-century reform movement in design that pushed against historical revival styles. The two sit together on the same façade.

The structure tells a parallel story. The thick outer walls are masonry, built of stone facing over a brick core, in the manner of the nineteenth century. Yet the second floor, along with parts of the beams, stairs, and columns, is reinforced concrete, a technology still new in Japan at the time. The official assessment described the building as conveying the design work of the Ministry of Justice at its peak and as a concrete example of an age when architecture was modernising on both fronts at once.

Before the national designation, the building had been recognised in stages: registered as a Tangible Cultural Property in 1997, named a Sapporo landscape asset in 2007, and designated a city Tangible Cultural Property in 2018, before the national listing of 2020 superseded the earlier registrations.

What to Look For

Start with the stone itself. Sapporo soft stone is easy to cut and carve, and the masons who worked the façade used several different finishes across the walls, from smooth ashlar to rougher textured surfaces. Seeing the range of techniques in one building is part of why it was judged worth preserving.

Then there is the figure of Justice above the entrance. The blindfold stands for impartiality, the scales for fair judgement, and the sword for the authority of the law. For a building that spent its first half-century as a courtroom, the carving is a direct statement of purpose rather than mere decoration.

Inside, the criminal courtroom has been reconstructed as it was in the court of appeals period and is open as the Criminal Courtroom Exhibition Room. Visitors can stand where defendants, judges, and lawyers once sat. The building also holds the Ōba Hiroshi Memorial Room, devoted to the Sapporo-born illustrator, and a room on the history of the city. Photography is allowed both inside and out.

Around the Building

The museum sits at the western end of Odori Park, the long green strip that runs through the centre of Sapporo and forms the stage for the city's summer beer gardens and its February Snow Festival. A short walk east along the park brings you to the Sapporo TV Tower; the clock tower and the former Hokkaidō government office, two of the city's best-known historic buildings, are also within walking distance.

The nearest subway station is Nishi-juitchōme on the Tōzai Line, about a four-minute walk away. Streetcar stops and city bus stops lie a few minutes further out. There is no visitor car park at the building, though paid parking is available nearby.

The museum is run by the city and opens daily except Mondays, with free entry. Because it is now a designated Important Cultural Property, Sapporo is planning a large-scale programme of seismic strengthening and restoration; as of 2026 the work is still in the survey and planning stage, but anyone making a special trip should check the museum's website for the current opening situation before visiting.