Shōwa
Aichi · 昭和Browse Aichi’s cultural heritage from the Shōwa period (1926 – 1989). Filter by type and keyword, with concise stories, maps, and travel tips.
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.
The Sumi Hall of 1957 in Ichinomiya, Aichi, an early work by Tange Kenzo, joins an office block and a hall under double-beam girders of exposed reinforced concrete.
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.
Sozanso in Tokugawaen, Nagoya, built in 1937 as the Japanese guest house of an exposition to promote Kiso timber and moved here later, is rich in hinoki and sawara.
The auditorium of Taki Gakuen in Konan, Aichi, built in 1933, is an almost plain concrete hall whose framed doorways and pediment-like gable give it a symbolic form.
The library of Taki Gakuen in Konan, Aichi, a prewar library of 1933 under an upper floor of 1965, shows post-war modernism in its louvres and bright reading room.
The main building of Taki Gakuen in Konan, Aichi, built in 1926, is a long concrete school whose pedimented entrance and clock tower have become a local landmark.
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.
The auditorium of Tokai Gakuen in Nagoya, built in 1931 for the enthronement of Emperor Showa, has a facade mixing the Wright manner with German Expressionism.
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.
The whale fountain in Dotoku Park, Nagoya, made by the sculptor Goto Kuwagoro in 1927, recalls that the district was once part of Ise Bay and is loved locally.
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.