Nippon Kangyo Bank Taipei Branch (Now Land Bank Exhibition Hall)

The Nippon Kangyo Bank Taipei Branch (日本勧業銀行台北支店) was completed in 1933 at the intersection of Xiangyang Road and Guanqian Road in Taipei's Jōnai (城内) district — the administrative and commercial heart of colonial Taihoku (台北). The Nippon Kangyo Bank (日本勧業銀行, established 1897) was a special government-backed financial institution created under the Hypothec Bank Act to provide long-term, low-interest loans for the development of agriculture and industry throughout the Japanese Empire.

The Taipei branch was designed by the Kangyo Bank's building section; a building permit was obtained in 1931 and the contractor Obayashi-gumi (大林組) built it in about twenty months from 1932. The building's most commanding feature is its row of massive columns along the facade, creating a monumental colonnade that conveyed the financial institution's stability and authority. The architectural style combined a classical colonnade and Mayan Revival ornament with elements adapted to Taiwan's subtropical climate, including high ceilings and ventilation features. The grand banking hall interior, with its soaring ceilings and ornate detailing, was designed to impress depositors and project the image of imperial financial strength.

During the colonial period (1895–1945), the Kangyo Bank Taipei Branch played a central role in financing Taiwan's agricultural modernization and industrial development. It managed long-term mortgage loans for sugar plantations, rice paddies, camphor operations, and other colonial enterprises that formed the backbone of Taiwan's export economy. The bank also facilitated land development projects and infrastructure construction, channeling metropolitan Japanese capital into the colony's productive sectors. During the wartime period (1937–1945), the branch participated in the empire-wide wartime bond programs, mobilizing savings from Taiwan's population for the war effort.

Following Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945, and the retrocession of Taiwan to the Republic of China, the Nippon Kangyo Bank's Taiwan operations were dissolved. The Taipei branch building was requisitioned and became the headquarters of the newly established Land Bank of Taiwan (臺灣土地銀行), which was charged with implementing the ROC government's land reform program — one of the most transformative policies of postwar Taiwan. The Land Bank kept its head office in the building until 1965 and then used it as a securities trading hall until 1988.

In 1991, the Ministry of the Interior designated the building as a Level III National Heritage site (later reclassified as a Municipal Heritage site), recognizing its architectural and historical significance. In 2005, an agreement signed by the Executive Yuan brought the building, which remains Land Bank property, into the National Taiwan Museum system. An extensive restoration project led by architect Li Chung-yueh (李重耀) was undertaken from 2007 to 2009, meticulously restoring the neoclassical facade, the grand interior banking hall, and the reinforced-concrete bank vault. The building reopened in February 2010 as the National Taiwan Museum Land Bank Exhibition Hall (國立臺灣博物館土銀展示館).

Today the exhibition hall houses the "Gallery of Life" featuring spectacular full-scale dinosaur skeleton replicas including Tarbosaurus, Triceratops, and the massive sauropod Huanghetitan, making it popularly known as "the Dinosaur Museum." The preserved bank vault has been converted into an exhibition space documenting the history of banking in Taiwan from the colonial era to the present. The building stands as one of the finest surviving examples of Japanese colonial-era financial architecture in Taiwan and serves as a powerful reminder of the economic structures that underpinned imperial rule.