Tatsuno Kingo designed the Marunouchi station building, which he intended as a restrained celebration of Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War. Work began in 1908 after delays from the two wars, and the station opened on December 20, 1914, with four platforms. The original form had three stories and two rooftop domes.
The facade is made primarily of bricks. The building is often said to be modeled on Amsterdam Centraal, but this is disputed, and the scholar Terunobu Fujimori rejects the claim. A B-29 firebombing raid on May 25, 1945 destroyed the domes, most of the third floor and much of the interior, though the brick walls and concrete floors mostly survived.
Reconstruction was completed by 1947 as a two-story building with simple angular roofs in place of the domes. A five-year renovation finished in October 2012 restored the facade to its pre-war condition and recreated the two domes.
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