Shōwa

This small 1934 study at Joshoji Temple in Toyota City hides vetted timber and delicate openwork transoms behind a plain clapboard exterior. Registered in 2005.

In Showa Ward, Nagoya, the Suzuki Family Residence Main House pairs a central-corridor plan with a Western wing, showing how prewar Nagoya built its new suburbs.

Early Showa granite gate posts and a 77-metre concrete wall cut to imitate edo-giri masonry are the only part of the Aisai Suzuki estate visible from the street.

Sumi Kaikan in Ichinomiya City, Aichi Prefecture, is the only building designed by world-renowned architect Kenzo Tange in the entire prefecture. Completed in 1957, it features signature elements of Tange's early work including double-beam girders and exposed concrete. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2008, it now serves as a community center open for free architectural tours.

The smallest of six registered buildings at Zengyoji in Nagoya, this pavilion shelters a stone basin inscribed 1743, older than its Showa roof by two centuries.

Hidden within the lush grounds of Tokugawa Garden in Nagoya stands Sosanso, a graceful single-story wooden villa built in 1937 as a guesthouse for the Pan-Pacific Peace Exposition and relocated to the garden the same year. Lavishly constructed with the finest Kiso cypress timber, it miraculously survived World War II, served as a wedding hall, and now welcomes visitors as a tea room. It was registered as a Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2014.

The Taki Gakuen Auditorium, completed in 1933 and registered as a Tangible Cultural Property in 2001, stands on the active campus of Taki Junior and Senior High School in Konan City, Aichi Prefecture. Designed by Murase Kuninosuke for the school's founder Taki Shinshiro and built by the Ando-gumi firm of Nagoya, this reinforced-concrete hall combines an austere, near-modernist exterior with the symbolic dignity of a triple-arched entrance and a pediment-shaped gable. Carefully renovated in 2023, it remains in daily ceremonial use and can be visited by advance reservation.

Nestled on the campus of Taki Junior and Senior High School in Konan City, Aichi Prefecture, the Taki Gakuen Library is a rare Registered Tangible Cultural Property where two eras of Japanese architecture stand stacked: a 1933 ground floor in the spirit of pre-war reinforced concrete schoolhouses, and a 1965 upper floor capturing the bright optimism of post-war modernism. Still in active use as the school library it was always meant to be, the building was carefully renovated in 2023 to restore its original plaster walls, lending counter, and reading room details. Together with the adjoining Main Building and Auditorium, it forms one of Aichi Prefecture's finest groupings of registered modern educational architecture.

The Main Building of Taki Gakuen in Konan City, Aichi Prefecture, is a two-story reinforced concrete schoolhouse completed in 1926 as the main hall of Taki Practical Business School. Designed by Murase Kuninosuke and built by Nagoya's Ando-gumi, its central clock tower has long been a beloved landmark of the surrounding town. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2001, it stands as a rare example of a still-active school classroom building recognized at the national level. Interior visits are available by advance reservation through the school's Cultural Property Office.

Ishuntei is the 1934 sukiya main house of Nagoya businessman Furukawa Tamesaburo, projecting over its garden on posts. Registered in 2018, it is open to visitors.

A small Nagoya gate of knotted logs and earthen walls, with flower-tracery doors. Registered in 2018, it opens collector Furukawa Tamesaburo's former sukiya home.

A tiny cedar-bark privy in a Nagoya tea garden, built never to be used. This decorative sand privy is one of six structures registered as cultural property in 2018.

In a Nagoya garden, the small tea house Chisokuan reworks the National Treasure tea room Joan, adding a trapezoidal alcove and a low host's-seat ceiling.

Nagoya's Tamesaburō Memorial Hall East Gate is a small sukiya gate, registered as a national cultural property in 2018, opening onto a garden villa and tea house.

A tiny cedar-bark waiting arbor in the garden of Nagoya's Tamesaburo Memorial Hall, set along the path to the teahouse Chisoku-an and registered in 2018.

At Chiryū Shrine in Aichi, this 1954 cypress-bark worship hall fronts a rare Owari-style layout in Mikawa, registered in 2014 near the shrine's older pagoda.

Located on the campus of Tokai Junior and Senior High School in Nagoya's Higashi Ward, the Tokai Gakuen Great Hall is a steel-frame reinforced concrete auditorium completed in 1931 to commemorate Emperor Shōwa's enthronement. Its bold façade blends Frank Lloyd Wright–inspired aesthetics with German Expressionist motifs, and it was registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 1998.

Dodantei in Owariasahi is a sukiya villa built in 1942 around a 1723 Hida farmhouse. Its adze-hewn beams, Noh-themed garden, 2008 registration, and access.

Standing in Dotoku Park in Nagoya's Minami Ward, this 9.7-meter whale fountain was crafted in 1927 by concrete sculptor Goto Kuwagoro. Registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property, it preserves the memory of land once submerged beneath Ise Bay, delighting visitors with its hand-operated water spout mechanism for nearly a century.

Completed in 1935 and registered in 1997, this Nagoya gallery sets green-glazed tiles and shachi ridge figures over rampart-like walls of steel-framed concrete.