Meiji

Discover the Former Uchida Family Residence, a designated Important Cultural Property in Minamichita, Aichi. This grand 1869 estate of a Bishu Kaisen ship owner preserves nine original buildings, Yakusugi cedar ceilings, and maritime heritage from Japan's coastal trading era.

The Oguri Residence in Handa, Aichi, a brewing dynasty's Meiji home, was named an Important Cultural Property in 2022 for its grand doma beamwork and tea rooms.

Discover the Former Ise Post Office (Uji-Yamada Post Office), a designated Important Cultural Property and the only surviving wooden post office from Japan's Meiji era. Now preserved at Museum Meiji-mura in Inuyama, Aichi, this 1909 half-timbered masterpiece features a striking V-shaped plan, conical dome, and a still-functioning postal service.

Discover the Former Gofukuza Theater, an Important Cultural Property at Museum Meiji-Mura in Inuyama, Aichi. This Meiji-era kabuki playhouse features a revolving stage, naraku underpass, and traditional Edo-period theater architecture.

Discover the Former Saigo Tsugumichi Residence, an Important Cultural Property at Museum Meiji-mura in Aichi. This French-designed Western mansion built in the 1880s blends European elegance with Japanese earthquake-resistant techniques, offering a rare glimpse into Meiji-era elite diplomacy and lifestyle.

Completed in 1898 in central Sapporo, the Former Sapporo Telephone Exchange is a two-story stone building that housed Hokkaido's first telephone exchange operations. Built with locally quarried Sapporo soft stone in an elegant Renaissance-inspired style, it is designated as an Important Cultural Property of Japan. Now preserved at Museum Meiji-mura in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, it features an interactive exhibition on the history of telephone communication in Japan.

A lighthouse keeper's quarters of 1873, built under British engineer R. H. Brunton beside the Sugashima Lighthouse in Mie. The brick house now stands at Meiji Mura.

Built in 1902 to reconnect the Kiso and Nagara rivers after Meiji works divided them, this brick lock still raises and lowers boats and is among Japan's earliest.

A rare wooden three-storey townhouse, the former Tomatsu House traces a Nagoya family's shift from oil to banking; now at Meiji-mura, its stern face hides tea rooms.

Hasshokan, a Nagoya ryotei grown from an 1880s timber merchant's villa, had nine buildings designated in 2020, centered on Horiguchi Sutemi's imperial Miyuki-no-ma.

Step inside Japan's only surviving early-Meiji prefectural office, a 54-meter pseudo-Western masterpiece of 1879 that hosted Emperor Meiji and now stands relocated at Meiji Mura in Inuyama, Aichi.

Built of stone around 1903, this is Aichi's oldest school gate, and one of thirteen working prefectural school gates registered together in 2017, a first for Japan.

At the rear of the deep Inoue lot, beyond the garden, stands this small early-Meiji storehouse of about 31 square meters, its walls clad in boarding. Listed 2004.

On Honmachi-dori in Inuyama's castle town, this early-Meiji townhouse now houses a pickle shop and tearoom, so visitors can step right inside. Listed 2004.

Built in 1909, the chūden of Ushida Hachiman Shrine in Chiryu, Aichi, is a rare middle hall between the worship and covering halls, carved with dragons and cranes.

Built in 1882, the haiden of Ushida Hachiman Shrine in Chiryu, Aichi, stands at the front of the central halls, richly carved, its roof re-tiled in 2024 to 2025.

Behind Eijuji's main hall in Shinshiro, Aichi, the Kaisando honors the temple's founder while the adjoining Ihaido holds memorial tablets. Built in 1893.

The Sōryō (monks' quarters) of Enmyoji Temple, nestled between the main hall and priest's residence in Inuyama castle town, Aichi Prefecture, is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property built in the mid-Meiji period. Distinguished by its kirizuma-zukuri gabled roof with sangawara pantiles and a formal stepped shikidai-genkan entrance facing the main hall, the building was registered on August 13, 2012, alongside the temple's other four historic structures. Set within the grounds of a Jōdo Shinshū temple famed for its 300-year-old weeping cherry tree, the Sōryō quietly tells the story of architectural evolution from the Edo through the early 20th century.

The East Takabei is a 17.4-meter plastered wall of a merchant compound in Inuyama, braced by buttress posts and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property.

The watari-ro of the Okumura Residence in Inuyama is a Meiji-era covered corridor doubling as a well-house, one of nine registered buildings now run as a restaurant.