Taiwan Governor-General's Office

The Taiwan Governor-General's Office (台灣總督府, Taiwan Sōtokufu) stands at No. 122, Section 1, Chongqing South Road in Zhongzheng District, Taipei. Built between June 1912 and March 1919 during Japanese colonial rule, the building served as the seat of the Government-General of Taiwan — the highest governing authority over the island from 1895 to 1945.

The building's design was selected through an architectural competition whose results were announced in 1909; the entry adopted was that of Uheiji Nagano, which had placed second in the preliminary round. The plans were subsequently modified by Matsunosuke Moriyama, who increased the central tower from six to eleven stories and expanded the office spaces. The completed Renaissance-style structure features an east-facing facade roughly 140 meters wide (130 meters in some sources) and a 60-meter tower that dominated the Taipei skyline throughout the colonial era. Viewed from above, the building's floor plan resembles the kanji character "日" (sun), symbolizing the Japanese Empire.

During the fifty years of Japanese rule, the Governor-General's Office served as the nerve center for all colonial administrative, military, and economic decisions regarding Taiwan. Japan appointed nineteen governors-general in all; those in office from 1919 onward operated from this building, overseeing the transformation of Taiwan's infrastructure, education system, and economy under Japanese imperial policy.

On May 31, 1945, the building suffered its most devastating blow during the Raid on Taipei (台北大空襲), the largest Allied air raid ever conducted against Taiwan. Units of the U.S. Fifth Air Force dispatched 117 B-24 Liberator heavy bombers (118 in some accounts), which dropped approximately 3,800 bombs on Taipei between 10:00 and 13:00. Despite heavy camouflage efforts, the Governor-General's Office received direct hits on its front left side, main lobby, and northern sections. The resulting fire burned for three days, gutting large portions of the interior and rendering the building unusable. Reported death tolls for the raid vary widely: figures of more than 3,000 are often cited, while a Government-General police tally recorded 759 air-raid deaths in Taihoku Prefecture for the whole of May 1945; tens of thousands were left homeless.

Following Japan's surrender in August 1945, the damaged building passed to the Republic of China authorities. Restoration was funded through donations raised from 1946 to mark Chiang Kai-shek's sixtieth birthday and was carried out under the Taiwan provincial authorities. Approximately 81,000 workers participated in the reconstruction, which was completed by the end of 1948.

The restored building was named Chieh Shou Hall (介壽館) in honor of that birthday. After the central government moved to Taipei in December 1949 it housed the Office of the President (shared with the Executive Yuan until 1957), and Chiang Kai-shek resumed the presidency there on March 1, 1950. It has served continuously as the Presidential Office Building (總統府) of the Republic of China since then. The building was designated a National Monument in 1998 and remains one of the most iconic architectural landmarks in Taiwan.