Hayashi Department Store 林百货

About Hayashi Department Store

Hayashi Department Store opened in Tainan in December 1932, when the surrounding commercial district represented a new urban shopping culture. Known locally as the five-storey building, it introduced a vertically organised department-store experience, with an elevator that became part of the city's memory of modern life.

The building's story includes a long period of diminished use after the Japanese era, followed by restoration and a return to retail in 2014. Its present identity combines a historic department-store setting with local design and cultural products. The value of a visit is therefore both architectural and commercial: shopping takes place inside a building that once embodied a very different idea of modernity.

Compare the compact floor layout with the grander scale of contemporary malls, and look for the surviving features described in the building's interpretation. The rooftop shrine is another distinctive historical element. Restored surfaces and modern displays sit alongside older material, so the current shop should be understood as an active reuse of heritage, with individual spaces subject to the store's visitor arrangements.

What to look for

• The scale and layout of an early modern department store.
• The elevator tradition and surviving architectural details.
• The rooftop shrine and the building's return to cultural retail.

Location & getting there

Getting to Hayashi Department Store

Find 林百貨 at Zhongyi Road Section 2, Tainan. Follow the store's circulation and rooftop rules; check current access to any heritage feature you particularly want to see.

• Search for 林百货 with 中西区.