The First National Bank was located in the

Kabutocho Kabutochō (), or more formally Nihonbashi Kabutochō (), is a neighborhood of Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, where the Tokyo Stock Exchange and many securities companies are located, so that it is considered Japan's equivalent of Wall Street in N ...

area, the business centre of

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

. Kabuto-cho was crowded with the core institutions of Japan's modern economy, including banks, the commodity exchange, and the stock exchange.

History

The First National Bank building was initially constructed in 1872 as the main bank of the

Mitsui is a Japanese corporate group and '' keiretsu'' that traces its roots to the ''zaibatsu'' groups that were dissolved after World War II. Unlike the ''zaibatsu'' of the pre-war period, there is no controlling company with regulatory power. Ins ...

group. In the following year, it became the headquarters of the

Dai-Ichi Bank The Dai-Ichi Bank (, ), known from its establishment in 1873 to 1896 as Dai-Ichi Kokuritsu Bank () was a major Japanese bank headquartered in Tokyo. Founded and developed for several decades by Shibusawa Eiichi, it expanded into Korea as ear ...

(), which was founded by

Shibusawa Eiichi was a Japanese industrialist widely known today as the "father of Japanese capitalism", having introduced Western capitalism to Japan after the Meiji Restoration. He introduced many economic reforms including use of double-entry accounting, ...

(1840-1931) and other businessmen. The building featured a traditional

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

-style structure, but its exterior was in a pseudo-western style. Shimizu Kisuke II, who designed and constructed the building, had practiced western-style architecture in the foreign concession in

Yokohama is the List of cities in Japan, second-largest city in Japan by population as well as by area, and the country's most populous Municipalities of Japan, municipality. It is the capital and most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a popu ...

and was Japan's leading house builder. He also worked on structures such as the "Tsukiji Hotel" and the "Mitsui House" at Suruga-cho. During the

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

, western architectural style and designs by foreign architects were adopted for many government facilities. Pseudo western-style buildings, mixing western and Japanese styles, were often constructed for the

private sector The private sector is the part of the economy which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government. Employment The private sector employs most of the workfo ...

. {{coord missing, Tokyo Buildings of the Meiji era Buildings and structures in Chūō, Tokyo Commercial buildings completed in 1872 1872 establishments in Japan