Ironai Bank District Japanese Tenugui

Otaru Art Base × UNGAPLUS

The "Otaru Ironai Bank Town Japanese Tenugui" was created in collaboration with the Otaru Art Base, which promotes historical culture based on the bank architecture and stone warehouses that make up Otaru's historical landscape. You will be captivated by the beautiful bank architecture, depicted with simple lines and surfaces.

With the onset of the Meiji period, Japan rapidly modernized, and Western art and architectural techniques were introduced along with various cultures. The tenugui towels feature illustrations of 10 bank buildings built between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, showcasing beautiful modern architecture incorporating the cutting-edge technology and design of the time.

The bank building, a symbol of Japan's modernization, carries on the history and memories of Otaru's past prosperity and is carefully preserved as a cultural heritage that shapes the Otaru landscape today.

The tenugui includes a design of a bank building.

From the Meiji period onwards, Otaru flourished as a port town replacing Hakodate and a coal shipping port, becoming a base for the development of Hokkaido. People and goods gathered here from various regions, and financial institutions flourished from the Meiji period through to the early Showa period. The area around Ironai Odori, where banks were built one after another, later came to be known as "Ironai Banking District." This landscape, where bank buildings built around 100 years ago still stand in a narrow 500-meter radius, is unique in Japan. It can be said to be a symbol of the modernization of not only Hokkaido, but of Japan as a whole.