Tatsuno Kingo

  • Born: 1854
  • Died: 1919

Tatsuno Kingo was a prominent Meiji period architect, known in particular for the Bank of Japan building, completed in 1896, and Tokyo Station.

Tatsuno studied under Josiah Conder at the Imperial College of Engineering (Kôbu gakkô) in Tokyo, and later traveled to London, in 1880, to pursue further training in Western/modern architecture. He returned to Japan in 1883, and the following year succeeded Conder as head of the architecture department at the Kôbu gakkô.

His design for the Bank of Japan closely resembles that of the Bank of Belgium, which he visited, along with other European bank buildings, at the urging of Minister Matsukata Masayoshi.[1]

References

  • Dallas Finn, "Reassessing the Rokumeikan," in Ellen Conant (ed.), Challenging Past and Present: The Metamorphosis of Nineteenth-Century Japanese Art, University of Hawaii Press (2006), 227.
  • Toshio Watanabe, "Japanese Imperial Architecture: From Thomas Roger Smith to Ito Chuta," in Conant, op. cit., 241.
  1. Finn, 233.