Former Rokujuhachi Bank Yagi Branch

A Renaissance-Style Bank of 1928

The Former Rokujuhachi Bank Yagi Branch (旧六十八銀行八木支店) is a two-storey reinforced concrete bank built in 1928 in Yagicho, Kashihara City, Nara Prefecture, which in 2006 was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs records a building area of 157 square metres, registered as a model of design, designed by Funahashi Shunichi.

The Kashihara tourism association notes that it was the city's first registered cultural property and one of the oldest surviving reinforced concrete buildings in southern Nara.

Structure

According to the Agency, it stands near Yagi-nishiguchi Station on the Kintetsu Kashihara Line, facing north onto the national highway. Its Renaissance-style front has shallow projecting wings, with Ionic columns flanking the central entrance and the semicircular window above.

Geometric details and the stack-bonded tiles around the entrance show newer tastes.

What to Look For

The tourism association explains that the Rokujuhachi (68th) Bank was a national bank proposed in 1879 by Yanagisawa Yasunobu, former lord of Koriyama, and merged in 1934 with three other banks to form the Nanto Bank. From 1963 the building served as the Kashihara branch of the Wakayama Sogo (later Wakayama) Bank, and for a time it was a cinema. The architect Funahashi Shunichi had been a Nara prefectural engineer.

On the front, notice the symmetrical composition centred on the Ionic columns and semicircular window.

Visiting the Former Rokujuhachi Bank Yagi Branch

The tourism association says it is now a wedding restaurant; the exterior can be seen from the highway.

It is about 5 minutes on foot from Kintetsu Yagi-nishiguchi Station and 10 minutes from Yamato-yagi Station.