Doric Columns Among the Storehouses
The Kawagoe Chamber of Commerce and Industry building, formerly the Kawagoe branch of the Bushū Bank (川越商工会議所（旧武州銀行川越支店）, Kawagoe Shōkō Kaigisho, kyū Bushū Ginkō Kawagoe Shiten), is a reinforced concrete bank building at Nakachō 1-12 in Kawagoe City, Saitama Prefecture, dated by the Agency for Cultural Affairs to Shōwa 3 (1928) and entered on Japan's national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 9 October 1998.
Kawagoe is known for something else entirely. The Ichibangai district a few minutes north is lined with kuradzukuri merchant storehouses, thick-walled, black-plastered, heavy-tiled, and the Toki no Kane bell tower rises above them. Walk south along that street and the townscape changes abruptly. On a corner site stands a grey classical facade with a colonnade running along two elevations, and the columns are Greek Doric: baseless, tapering, with plain cushion capitals. The columns measure about a metre across.
The overall composition is described in the official record as Renaissance Revival, the classical vocabulary that Japanese banks favoured through the 1920s for the same reason banks everywhere did. A bank had to look as though it would still be standing next year. The building is reinforced concrete, one basement level and two storeys above ground, with a registered floor area of 566 square metres.
The entrance on the corner is the piece that repays a second look. It carries Baroque-inflected ornament, a swelling, plastic treatment quite unlike the austere Doric order alongside it, and a medallion sits above the doorway. Setting a Baroque doorcase into a Doric colonnade would be a solecism in a European academic building. Here it reads as a deliberate flourish at the point where two streets meet.
The Bank, the Architect, and Criterion Two
The Bushū Bank was a creature of prefectural policy. Saitama in the 1910s had over a hundred bank offices, small, uncoordinated, and unable to supply the province with serious credit, so the prefectural governor pushed for a single strong institution. The bank was founded in 1918 with its head office in Urawa and began trading in January 1919. Its first president was Otaka Jirō, a nephew of Shibusawa Eiichi. Through the 1920s it absorbed one local bank after another, and in July 1943, under wartime consolidation, it merged with three others to form the Saitama Bank, which through later mergers became today's Saitama Resona Bank.
The Kawagoe branch was designed by Maeda Kenjirō (1892 to 1975). Maeda trained at the Tokyo Fine Arts School, worked for the Ministry of Communications and then in the architectural section of Dai-Ichi Bank, and opened his own office in 1924. He won an extraordinary number of design competitions, enough to earn him a nickname to that effect, though a good many of the winning schemes were never built. The Chamber of Commerce notes that his work includes the Urawa branch of the same bank, the Nihonbashi store of Takashimaya and the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art.
Registration came under the second of the three criteria, that the building serves as a model of design. That distinction matters. Most registered buildings in Saitama qualify under criterion one, contribution to the historic landscape. Criterion two is a judgement about the quality of the architecture itself. The registration number, 11-0007, marks this as the seventh registered structure in the prefecture, an early entry into a system that had only begun in 1996.
Registration is not designation. A Registered Tangible Cultural Property is not an Important Cultural Property, and the lighter regulatory touch of registration is precisely what allows a building like this to carry on as a working office rather than becoming a museum piece.
A Cultural Property That Still Answers the Phone
The Chamber of Commerce and Industry acquired the building in 1970, in the year of its own seventieth anniversary, and has used it as its offices ever since. That is more than half a century of continuous occupation, and it explains the building's condition. No large-scale reconstruction has been carried out, so the chairman's room, the large and small meeting rooms and the staircases survive substantially as built. Kawagoe City maintains a location library for film and television production, and this building appears in it on exactly those grounds.
Visitors should understand what that means in practice. This is a functioning office, not an attraction. There is no admission desk, no ticket and no tour. Reception is open on weekdays from 9am to 5pm and closed at weekends and on public holidays. Anyone with legitimate business there will see the interior; anyone else should plan on the exterior, which is where the architecture makes its case anyway. Photography from the street is unrestricted.
The building stands on the corner of Taishō Roman Yume-dōri, a shopping street of early twentieth century shopfronts that runs south from the Ichibangai storehouse district. Coming from Seibu Shinjuku Line's Hon-Kawagoe Station it is about a ten minute walk north; from Kawagoe Station on the JR Kawagoe Line and Tobu Tojo Line, the Koedo loop bus stops nearby, or it is around twenty minutes on foot. Tobu Tojo Line's Kawagoe-shi Station is a similar distance.
Seen against the storehouses, the Doric colonnade makes an argument about the 1920s that no amount of text can. Kawagoe's merchants had rebuilt in fireproof kura construction after the great fire of 1893, a technique rooted in the Edo period. Thirty-five years later the money moved into a concrete building wearing Greek columns. Both are on the same street, four minutes apart, and both are registered cultural properties.
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Q&A
- Can visitors go inside the Kawagoe Chamber of Commerce and Industry building?
- The building is a working office rather than a visitor attraction. There is no admission system, ticket or guided tour. Reception operates on weekdays from 9am to 5pm and is closed at weekends and on public holidays. The exterior can be viewed and photographed from the street at any time.
- When was the Kawagoe Chamber of Commerce and Industry building constructed?
- The Agency for Cultural Affairs records the date as Shōwa 3 (1928). The Chamber of Commerce states on its own website that the building was completed in December of Shōwa 2 (1927) as the Kawagoe branch of the Bushū Bank. The two accounts differ by a matter of months; the national database takes precedence in the formal record.
- Who designed the Kawagoe Chamber of Commerce and Industry building?
- Maeda Kenjirō (1892 to 1975), a graduate of the Tokyo Fine Arts School who established his own practice in 1924. According to the Chamber of Commerce, his other work includes the Urawa branch of the Bushū Bank, the Nihonbashi store of Takashimaya and the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art.
- What architectural style is the Kawagoe Chamber of Commerce and Industry building?
- The official description gives the overall design as Renaissance Revival, with a heavy Greek Doric colonnade on the street elevations and a distinctive entrance on the corner carrying Baroque-style ornament. The structure is reinforced concrete with one basement level and two storeys above ground.
- How do I get to the Kawagoe Chamber of Commerce and Industry building?
- It stands at Nakachō 1-12, on the corner of Taishō Roman Yume-dōri. Hon-Kawagoe Station on the Seibu Shinjuku Line is about ten minutes on foot. From Kawagoe Station, served by the JR Kawagoe Line and the Tobu Tojo Line, take the Koedo loop bus or allow around twenty minutes walking.
- Is the Kawagoe Chamber of Commerce and Industry building an Important Cultural Property?
- No. It is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property, registration number 11-0007, which made it the seventh registered structure in Saitama Prefecture. Registration is a separate and lighter system from designation as an Important Cultural Property or National Treasure, and it permits continued working use of the building.
Basic Information
| Name | Kawagoe Chamber of Commerce and Industry, formerly Bushū Bank Kawagoe Branch (川越商工会議所（旧武州銀行川越支店）) |
|---|---|
| Location | 1-12 Nakachō, Kawagoe City, Saitama Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure), registration no. 11-0007 |
| Year Designated | Registered 9 October 1998, gazetted 26 October 1998 (14th round of registration) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Reinforced concrete, one basement level and two storeys above ground; building area 566 m². Dated Shōwa 3 (1928) |
| Owner | Kawagoe Chamber of Commerce and Industry |
| Public Access | Working office. No visitor admission system; exterior viewing from the street. Reception weekdays 9am to 5pm |
References
- National Database of Designated Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Kawagoe Chamber of Commerce and Industry (former Bushu Bank Kawagoe Branch)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00000813
- Cultural Heritage Online: Kawagoe Chamber of Commerce and Industry (former Bushu Bank Kawagoe Branch)
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/180723
- Kawagoe Chamber of Commerce and Industry: About the building
- https://www.kawagoe.or.jp/about-the-kawagoe-chamber-of-commerce-and-industry/about-the-building-of-the-kawagoe-chamber-of-commerce-and-industry/
- Kawagoe City Location Library: Kawagoe Chamber of Commerce and Industry
- https://www.city.kawagoe.saitama.jp/locationlibrary/location/011.html
Last verified: 2026.08.09