Kofu City Hall, Municipal government building in Marunouchi, Japan
Kofu City Hall is an administrative building located in the Marunouchi district serving as the main government office for Yamanashi Prefecture's capital. The structure houses various departments responsible for managing municipal services and public affairs.
Kofu City Hall began in 1889, when the first hall opened in Yanagimachi using an old Ryaboki school building in the Fujimura style. A second hall, of reinforced concrete and brick, was completed in 1915 but burned in the 1945 Kofu air raid. The city then used its surviving waterworks building, and in 1961 added a five-storey reinforced concrete hall designed by Naito Tachu. The present hall, on the site of a former Edo-period guard residence, opened on 7 May 2013.
The site in Marunouchi 1-chome, in front of Kofu Castle's Otemon gate, was a samurai residential quarter enclosed by the inner moat. Old maps of the castle town identify the city hall grounds with the residence of the Kofu kōban otte-yaku, and remains possibly linked to that residence have been found on the site.
The main hall is a six-minute walk from the south exit of Kofu Station on the JR Chuo and Minobu lines, or a short bus ride to the Kofu City Hall or Kofu Police Station stops. Visitors may enter floors 1 to 3 and the 10th-floor observation area; the observation floor is open from 8:30 to 21:30 except 31 December to 3 January. Counter services run weekdays 8:30 to 17:30, with a Sunday counter until 17:15.
The rooftop tower is shaped like a grape trellis, a nod to the vineyards of the Kofu Basin. Solar panels on the roof and a diesel generator in the basement let the building keep its own power supply during a disaster. The 10th-floor observation floor is open to the public from 8:30 to 21:30, except 31 December to 3 January.
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