Hokkaido · SapporoNo.722★★★Open in map →
Sapporo Clock Tower
A wooden hall from Hokkaido's settlement era, wedged between office towers in central Sapporo, still running the tower clock it was given as a young building. It is a museum by day and a rented hall by night, and its facade has a terrace across the street built for looking at it.
- FromSapporo Station (JR and subway)
- ~10 minWalk from Sapporo Station
- Sapporo Clock Tower
Where it is
102 more notes in Hokkaido · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- The terrace across the streeta raised viewing deck on the building opposite, the angle the museum itself recommends
- The bell cornerrecordings of this clock and of tower and church bells from twelve places abroad, on headphones
- The chronology rooma large model of the hall and a timeline of the pioneer college and its teachers
- The upstairs hallthe college assembly room restaged, and the space the building was raised to be
- The clock machinerya Howard pendulum movement kept running upstairs, with the weights wound each morning
How to actually get there
- Sapporo Station south exit → Kita 1-jo Nishi 2-chome (about a 10-minute walk south through the office grid).
- Buy a ticket on the ground floor, then go straight up to the hall and the clock machinery before working back down.
- Cross the street afterwards and photograph the facade from the terrace of the building opposite.
- Ten minutes on foot from Sapporo Station
- Leave JR Sapporo Station by the south exit and walk south down the grid to Kita 1-jo Nishi 2-chome; the official guidance is about ten minutes. No ticket or transfer is involved, and because Sapporo's centre is laid out in numbered blocks the route is hard to lose. Sapporo Station is also the terminus for the subway's Namboku and Toho lines, so you can arrive on any of them.
- Return to Sapporo Station
- Walk back north up the grid, or pick up the subway at Odori, one block south of the Clock Tower, and ride a single stop north. Trains are frequent through the day. The subway does not run all night, so check the last departure on the platform if you are staying out in the city afterwards.
About the place
The Clock Tower stands at Kita 1-jo Nishi 2-chome, in the middle of Sapporo's office district. It was put up as the drill hall of the Sapporo Agricultural College — a covered space for military drill and physical training — and it is a wooden two-storey building raised by the balloon-frame method that spread through the American Midwest during that country's settlement era. From the ground to the tip of the tower's finial it measures 19.825 metres, which is the whole reason the neighbours now loom over it. The hall inside is still in use: a museum through the day, and a rented room for concerts and weddings in the evening.
How to enjoy it
Doors open at 8:45 and the last entry is at 17:00, so the first half-hour of the day is the quietest window there is. Go up to the hall first and work back down; the winding of the weights is explained in the morning, and the room empties again as soon as a group has passed through. Save the facade for last and shoot it from the terrace opposite rather than from the kerb, where the building is too close to fit.
Background & history
The building was completed on 16 October 1878 as the drill hall of the Sapporo Agricultural College, the school that grew into Hokkaido University. Its tower clock was ordered from the Howard company of New York and began marking the hours for the city on 12 August 1881. When the college moved to its present campus the hall stayed behind, and in 1906 it was shifted to the site it occupies now. It was designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan in 1970, by which time the clock had been running for most of the city's life.
Before you go
- Cash
- Admission is charged for adults and university students, and the official site lists junior-high-school age and younger as free, with a reduced rate for groups. The ticket desk is on the ground floor. Bring cash for it rather than assuming a card will be taken.
- Before you go
- The building shuts for the new year, from 1 to 3 January. The upstairs hall is let out in the evenings, so the site is a museum during opening hours only. Sapporo winters are hard and the pavement in front is narrow — the terrace across the street is the better place to stand with a camera.
- Another way
- Odori Station is served by all three subway lines; take the city-hall side exit and the official guidance gives about five minutes on foot from there.
- After you get off
- From the south exit of JR Sapporo Station, walk south along the grid to Kita 1-jo Nishi 2-chome. The Clock Tower sits on the left, set back behind a low wall between two office buildings.