Shōwa

Built in 1930 at Toyohashi in Aichi, this small shinmei-style main hall keeps Ise's rules: tapered ridge posts, six katsuogi billets, a thatch-shaped copper roof.

The Asahi Sunac Main Building in Owariasahi, Aichi, is a timber office of 1939 built to naval standards and registered in 2004. Its reliefs and access explained.

A tea garden waiting shelter of 1948 on the west side of a private garden in Tsushima, Aichi. Only 3.2 square metres, with round-log framing and bamboo rafters.

At the south edge of the Umeda property stands this early-Showa warehouse, a long two-story timber building of about 18 meters, divided into five rooms. Listed 2004.

Facing the Umeda property's west road, this 9.1-meter tiled wall joins the main house to the warehouse, ink-black boards below and white plaster above. Listed 2004.

Standing in a quiet corner of Inuyama's preserved castle town in Aichi Prefecture, Enmyoji Sanmon is a four-pillar gate built in 1937 by the eleventh-generation master carpenter Ito Heizaemon. Featuring a copper-plated gabled roof crowned by an arched karahafu and lavishly decorated with tiered rainbow beams and frog-leg struts, this finely crafted gate was designated a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2012. With a 300-year-old weeping cherry blooming just within its threshold, it offers one of Inuyama's most memorable views.

The Otani Family Residence Rice Storehouse in Toyokawa, Aichi is a remarkable two-story reinforced concrete granary built in 1928. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2017, this compact 23m² structure features a distinctive vault ceiling and reflects the modernization of rural Japanese agricultural architecture during the early Showa era.

The Oriental Building Rooftop Ferris Wheel, located atop Nagoya Mitsukoshi Sakae department store, is the oldest surviving rooftop Ferris wheel in Japan. Built in 1956 and designated as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property, it preserves the memory of Japan's beloved postwar department store rooftop amusement parks.

In Fuso, Aichi, the 1934 belfry of Kakuo-ji is a national Registered Tangible Cultural Property: one bay square, packed with dense brackets and a painted ceiling.

Kakujoro Main Building, a 1936 restaurant-inn in the old port of Fukue on the Atsumi Peninsula, became Tahara's first Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2022.

A Registered Tangible Cultural Property designed in 1930 by Swiss architect Max Hinder, this Western-style rectory stands within the grounds of Nagoya's oldest Catholic church, founded in 1887. Located in the Shirakabe-Chikara-Shuki Townscape Preservation District, it is a precious example of early Showa-era colonial-style architecture.

The Kamiya Family Residence Nakakuguri Gate in Nagoya is a small early Showa bracket gate, 1.7 metres wide, with a carved reused member in its north bracket.

The 1928 main hall of Kijo Elementary School in Kariya, Aichi, is a reinforced-concrete building by Onaka Hajime on the old castle grounds, now a free local museum.

Built in 1938 on a crossroads corner of Inuyama's old castle town, this timber merchant house keeps the narrow deep plot form and a passage open to the roof above.

Along the west and south of the Kawarada Residence in Nagoya runs a concrete retaining wall faced with coursed Oya stone, capped and crowned with a clipped hedge.

At the south edge of the Kawarada Residence in Nagoya, a 1938 tiled wall steps down the slope in three stages to a recessed sliding-door gate with carved transoms.

At the cut northwest corner of the Kawarada Residence in Nagoya, a 1938 bracket-arm gate and tiled earthen wall form the formal street face of a Showa garden house.

Kawarada Family Residence Main Building, in Nagoya's Showa Ward, dates from 1937. Registered in 2020 with its gates and Oya stone wall, it covers 144 square meters.

The Former Head Office of Kankyo Mirin in Kanie, Aichi Prefecture, is a 1937 reinforced-concrete office building registered as a Tangible Cultural Property of Japan. As the first RC structure ever built in Kanie Town, this elegant Showa-era landmark features scratch-tile walls and terracotta entrance trim along the Kanie River.

Just 910 millimetres wide, this early Showa garden gate in Okazaki sets a cedar bark roof on adzed hexagonal posts and closes the view east from the reception room.