Taipei Post Office (Beimen Post Office)

The Taipei Post Office (台北郵便局, Taihoku Yūbinkyoku) is one of the most significant surviving examples of Japanese colonial-era communications infrastructure in Taiwan. Located at No. 114, Section 1, Zhongxiao West Road in Zhongzheng District, Taipei, the building stands immediately south of the Qing Dynasty-era North Gate (承恩門, Cheng'en Gate, commonly called Beimen), the best-preserved gate of old Taipei's city walls built in 1884.

Construction and Architecture

The present building was designed by Kuriyama Shunichi (栗山俊一, 1888–?), a graduate of Tokyo Imperial University's Department of Architecture who served as an engineer in the Taiwan Governor-General's Office Construction Section (臺灣總督府營繕課). Kuriyama arrived in Taiwan during the early Taisho period and also designed the Taipei Broadcasting Station (completed 1930). Construction of the new post office began on April 3, 1928 (Showa 3) and was completed on March 15, 1930, with ancillary facilities finished by April 15. The dedication ceremony was held on June 17, 1930 — the anniversary of the start of Japanese rule — and operations moved to the new building on June 30, 1930.

The three-story reinforced concrete structure cost 560,000 yen and covered over 13,000 square meters, making it the largest post office in Taiwan. The main entrance faces northwest toward the North Gate traffic circle, featuring five arched colonnades with classical double pillars. The exterior walls used distinctive light-brown "air-defence colour" (防空色) tiles from the Beitou kilns — a muted protective tone used on large public buildings of the period. The structural layout followed the traditional Taiwanese siheyuan (courtyard house) plan.

The previous post office on the site, a wooden structure built in 1898, had been destroyed by fire in February 1913 along with the adjacent Governor-General's Telecom Bureau. A temporary wooden building served from November 1913 until the new building's completion.

Japanese Colonial Postal Administration

Taiwan's postal system under Japanese rule traced its origins to July 9, 1895, when the Japanese military established a field postal office (野戰郵便局) in Taipei shortly after the Treaty of Shimonoseki ceded Taiwan to Japan. The Taipei Post Office quickly became one of the three principal postal administrative headquarters in colonial Taiwan, serving as the central hub for the island's northern region.

The building housed operations of the Taiwan Governor-General's Communications Bureau (臺灣總督府逓信部), which managed postal services, telegraph, and telephone systems across the colony. This bureau was the local arm of Japan's Ministry of Communications (逓信省), which controlled all civilian and increasingly militarized communications infrastructure throughout the Japanese Empire.

Wartime Communications Control (1937–1945)

With the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and the subsequent Pacific War from 1941, the Taipei Post Office took on critical wartime functions. As the headquarters of Taiwan's postal and telegraph network, the building became central to Japan's wartime communications control (通信統制) regime on the island:

• Mail censorship: All outgoing and incoming mail was subject to military censorship (郵便検閲), with the Taipei Post Office serving as the primary processing center for northern Taiwan.
• Military postal routing: The office coordinated field post (軍事郵便) for Japanese troops stationed in Taiwan and transiting through the island en route to Southeast Asian and Pacific theaters.
• Telegraph control: Telegraph traffic was prioritized for military and government use, with civilian communications severely restricted.
• Wartime mobilization support: The postal network was integrated into the broader wartime mobilization system, distributing conscription notices, war bonds, and propaganda materials.

During this period, the Governor-General's Communications Bureau operated under increasingly tight military control, reflecting the broader militarization of Taiwan's colonial administration.

Taipei Air Raid of May 31, 1945

On May 31, 1945, about 117 B-24 Liberator bombers of the U.S. Fifth Air Force (118 in some accounts) conducted the largest air raid on Taipei, striking from approximately 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM. The death toll is commonly given as about 3,000, though colonial police statistics recorded 759 air-raid deaths in Taihoku Prefecture for the whole month, and much of the colonial administrative district was devastated. The nearby Governor-General's Office was set on fire and badly damaged. The Taipei Post Office building survived the raid and remained in use after the war.

Post-War Transition and Preservation

After Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945, the building was taken over by the Republic of China government. The Japanese designation "郵便局" was changed to the Chinese "郵局," and an independent Telecommunications Bureau (電信局) was established to separate postal and telecom functions. The original five-arched entrance porch was demolished in 1968 for a pedestrian overpass and a fourth floor was added in 1969 to accommodate growing business volume, altering the building's historic facade; the porch was reconstructed in 2021.

On August 14, 1992, the Ministry of the Interior designated the Taipei Post Office as a Grade 3 historic site (now classified as a municipal historic site). The building continues to serve as the headquarters of Chunghwa Post's Taipei operations, supervising some 170 branch offices in Taipei City, part of New Taipei, Kinmen and Matsu. It remains one of the most prominent landmarks in the Beimen area, alongside the restored North Gate and the surrounding historic district that has been revitalized since 2016.