Jin Watanabe (architect)

Jin Watanabe was born on February 16,[1] 1887,[2] in Sado, Niigata Prefecture, Japan,[citation needed] and grew up in Tokyo.

[1] His father was Wataru Watanabe (渡辺渡),[1] who became director of the Tokyo Imperial University Institute of Technology.

Watanabe is known in particular for designing the Imperial Household Museum (1931-1938), the Hattori Clock shop and the Daiichi Seimei Insurance Building (c. 1938, in collaboration with architect Yosaku Matsumoto) in Tokyo.

Watanabe won the competition with a design that followed the lineage of Imperial Crown Style, having a neo-classical base topped with tiled and gabled Japanese-style roofs.

The Dai-ichi Seimei building is located across the street from the main entrance to the Imperial Palace grounds in the Marunouchi area of Tokyo.