Design drawing for the Osaka Shosen Kaisha (Osaka Mercantile Co., Ltd.) Taipei Branch.
(Source: Journal of Taiwan Architecture, Volume 10, Issue 4 (Sept. 1938), no page number. National Taiwan Library collection.)
Osaka Shosen Kaisha (Osaka Mercantile Co., Ltd.) Taipei Branch Architectural Design
Constructed in 1937, the Osaka Shosen Kaisha (Osaka Mercantile Co., Ltd.) Taipei Branch is the only known work in Taiwan by renowned Japanese architect, Setsu WATANABE (1884-1967). The Taipei Branch is three-storeyed reinforced concrete structure. The L-shaped building has a concise modernist facade, with a traditional Eastern rooftop spired-turret at the turn. This work by architect Setsu WATANABE amalgamates Eastern and Western styles, and reflects the Japanese colonial Asian Renaissance style architecture that echoes the Japanese “Asian Revival” policies of that time.
When construction began on the Taipei Branch in 1936, Japan was on the eve of implementing a comprehensive wartime rationing effort. This building thus became the last reinforced concrete structure to be built in Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period. This rare exemplar is profound testament to a decline in the Japanese authority’s “Western historical style architecture” (see Note 1), in Taiwan.The Taipei Branch, the Taipei Post Office, Railway Department, Railway Hotel, and Taipei Station created a notable urban vista along the elegant Northern Three-Line Road (see Note 2) (Present day Zhongxiao W. Road).