Edo

Explore the Sanmon gate of Manpuku-ji Temple in Chiryu, Aichi — a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property built in 1844, featuring exquisite Edo-period bracket work within a 1,200-year-old temple complex.

Discover the bell tower (shōrō) of Manpuku-ji Temple in Chiryu, Aichi Prefecture—a Registered Tangible Cultural Property built in 1862. Featuring dense Zen-style ornamentation and fan-shaped rafters, this elegant structure stands within a temple founded in 815 by the great monk Saichō.

Built in 1795 on an island in a Toyohashi park pond, the Minato Chikushima Benten Shrine is a three-bay tiled hall listed in 2008 with a painted coffered ceiling.

The lower storey of a tahōtō pagoda at Myōgen-in near Nagoya, whose upper level was lost to the 1891 Nōbi earthquake. It now serves as a hall for Dainichi Nyorai.

A late Edo townhouse in Ichinomiya, Aichi. Dated 1855 by its ridge tablet, it has a seven-ken front, end fire walls and a lattice bay. Registered in 2008.

Yahira Shrine Main Hall in Shinshiro, Aichi, was raised in 1700 for three merged deities, its inner sanctum split three ways behind three doors. Registered in 2013.

A late Edo farmhouse in Kanie, Aichi: thatch over a tiled pent roof, 14 meters wide, built by the Owari yotsudate method. Registered 2011, privately owned, not open.

At Ryusenji in Shinshiro, Aichi, an 1822 hall holding thirty-three Kannon images shares its posts and wall with a 1935 room built for serving tea to worshippers.

Ryusenji's kuri in Shinshiro, Aichi, dates from 1843. Four rooms lie north of the great central pillar; the kitchen occupies what was once the earth-floored half.

Built in 1820 at Ryusenji in Shinshiro, Aichi, this 124-square-metre hall keeps carved rainbow beams and transoms of cloud dragons and lions. Registered in 2013.

Built in 1763 beside the main hall of Renkyo-ji in Nagoya, this priests' quarters keeps the plain look of a working Edo-period temple. Registered in 2017.

This 1812 four-legged gate before the main hall of Renkyo-ji in Nagoya is worked with carving, and a 23-metre plastered wall lines the approach. Registered in 2017.

Linked to Renkyo-ji's main hall in Nagoya, this 1812 shoin holds a raised guest room with a built-in desk and coffered ceiling. Registered in 2017 as a model of its type.

Renkyō-ji Main Hall, set on a quiet wooded hill in eastern Nagoya's Meitō Ward, is the principal worship hall of a Shinshū Takada-ha temple founded by tradition over a thousand years ago. Built in 1758 with a hipped tile roof and a generous 5-by-5-bay plan, it features a distinctive drum-towered entrance and a textbook Pure Land Buddhist interior of outer sanctuary, inner sanctuary, side rooms, and rear hall. Registered as a Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2017 along with five other temple buildings, it preserves an unusually complete Edo-period Shin Buddhist precinct within modern Nagoya.

Renkei-ji Hondo, located in Aguicho on Aichi Prefecture's Chita Peninsula, is a remarkably large Jodo Shinshu main hall completed in 1811 by the renowned Yokomatsu carpenters of Edo-period Aichi. Designated a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2013, the hall preserves rare architectural features including a four-pillar three-bay front porch, round outer-sanctuary pillars, and a stunning double-folded coffered ceiling above its inner sanctuary — a hidden treasure of regional Japanese craftsmanship.

Held in the Hosa Library in Nagoya, the Song Edition of the Taiping Shenghui Fang (Kanazawa Bunko Version) is a Southern Song printed copy of the imperial medical encyclopedia originally compiled in 100 volumes by Wang Huaiyin under the command of Emperor Taizong. Designated an Important Cultural Property, it traveled from Hōjō Sanetoki's Kanazawa Bunko through Toyotomi Hidetsugu and Tokugawa Ieyasu to the first Owari lord Tokugawa Yoshinao. The 24 surviving printed booklets, supplemented by 27 Keichō-era manuscript volumes, bear the distinctive 'Kanazawa Bunko' and 'Gohon' seals on every volume, making it a primary witness to East Asian medical history.

Made in 1639 for Chiyohime, the shogun's two-year-old daughter, this 70-piece trousseau glitters with gold maki-e from The Tale of Genji. A National Treasure.