Former Kyoto Central Telephone Office Nishijin Branch

An Expressionist Telephone Exchange of 1921

The Former Kyoto Central Telephone Office Nishijin Branch (旧京都中央電話局西陣分局舎) is a branch telephone exchange of 1921 in Kainokamicho, Kamigyo Ward, Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture, and was designated an Important Cultural Property on July 5, 2006 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Agency records a three-storey building in reinforced concrete and timber (excluding interiors) with a building area of 489.00 square metres; designation number 02487.

Columns Crowned with Venus Torsos

The Former Kyoto Central Telephone Office Nishijin Branch stands on the south-west corner of the crossing of Aburanokoji and Nakadachiuri streets. It was the third branch telephone exchange in Kyoto, begun in October 1920 and finished in December the following year to the design of an engineer of the Ministry of Communications (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

It is of reinforced concrete, two storeys and partly three. Three columns of half-elliptical section rise across the ground floor of the front, each crowned with a torso of Venus, and relief panels of dancers frame the bow window on the first floor and run under the eaves of the east side (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Why It Is an Important Cultural Property

The Agency designates this building as an Important Cultural Property, the only surviving work of an architect who died young, whose highly original design is akin to German Expressionism and important in the history of modern Japanese architecture.

What to Look For

Look for the Venus torsos on the half-elliptical columns of the front and the relief panels of dancers (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Visiting

It is owned by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone West Corporation (Agency for Cultural Affairs). No official information on visiting was found.