Former Hokkaido Government Office

The red brick

Around 2.5 million red bricks make up the walls

A red brick building with a tower stands behind flower gardens and a pond. The bricks in the walls number around 2.5 million, made in the villages of Toyohira and Shiroishi, now wards of Sapporo. The building is 61 metres wide and 33 metres high to the top of the tower.

2.5 millionbricks in the walls

An American plan

An American adviser planned the first building with a dome in 1873

In 1873 the Hokkaidō Development Commission built its Sapporo main office. Its American adviser, Horace Capron, planned an octagonal dome, a popular style in the United States at that time, and the building was then one of the largest in Japan. It was destroyed by fire in 1879.

Built again

In 1888 a new office opened in red brick with its dome

After the commission ended in 1882, the Hokkaidō Government was established in 1886. The destroyed building was restored, and the new office was inaugurated in 1888, with red bricks and the octagonal dome that the first governor, Michitoshi Iwamura, had suggested.

Fire again

Fire burned out the inside in 1909 but the brick walls held

In 1896 the air vents and the dome were taken away. Fire struck again in 1909 and burnt out the inside, but the red brick walls sustained little damage. Restoration work began in 1910 and was completed in 1911.

The dome returns

The dome came back in 1968 and the building is kept for good

In 1968 the prefecture marked its 100th anniversary by restoring the original air vents and the octagonal dome, and decided to preserve the building permanently. The next year it was listed as one of the National Important Cultural Properties. Inside hang 20 paintings of important scenes in the history of Hokkaidō.

20paintings of Hokkaidō's history inside