Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan

Near the center of the Nagano Meijo brewery in Chikuma, this late-Edo storehouse ages sake kasu, the lees left after pressing. Part of a junmai brewery founded in 1689.

West of the main hall at Nagano Meijo in Chikuma, this late-Edo storehouse held brown and polished rice. Old maps show a waterwheel mill once milled grain here.

At the core of Nagano Meijo in Chikuma, this two-storey earthen hall is where rice is washed, mashed and pressed, with koji rooms and a sake shrine on the floor above.

This 1916 timber building at Nagano Meijo in Chikuma shows refined modern Japanese-style craft, with grey plaster and a zelkova alcove above the ground-floor shop.

East of the main hall at Nagano Meijo in Chikuma, this late-Edo cellar uses raised-beam framing to form one tall room where tanks of finished sake rest and mature.

At the north edge of Nagano Meijo in Chikuma, this late-Edo gate opens onto the Hokkoku Nishiwaki highway. One half is the gateway, the other a former gatekeeper's room.

The Nippon Sei Ko Kai Chubu Diocese Inariyama All Saints Church, a reinforced concrete chapel built in 1933 along the historic Zenkōji Highway in Chikuma City, Nagano, was registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property in 2023. Discover the history of Canadian Anglican missionary work and the distinctive architecture featuring buttress-like pilasters and semicircular arched windows.

The Japan Crane Association Nagano Branch Museum in Nagano City is a nationally registered tangible cultural property that preserves the former Ikeda Police Station, originally built in 1893 during the Meiji era. Discover this charming two-story Western-style wooden building featuring a hipped-roof entrance porch and exquisite lace-like barge board decorations that showcase the unique beauty of Japan's pseudo-Western architectural tradition.

Discover the Iiyama Resurrection Church, a 1932 wooden chapel designed by Canadian missionary Rev. Waller, blending Gothic architecture with Japanese tatami floors in Nagano's historic Buddhist temple town. A nationally Registered Tangible Cultural Property.

Discover the Nippon Sei Ko Kai Chubu Diocese Okaya St. Barnabas Church, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Okaya, Nagano. Built in 1928 for silk factory workers, this unique wooden chapel blends Anglican traditions with Japanese tatami-mat flooring and shrine-style ornamentation.

Discover Nippon Sei Ko Kai Matsumoto Holy Cross Church, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Nagano Prefecture. Built in 1910 by Canadian missionary F.W.C. Kennedy, this Gothic-style wooden church features scissor truss ceilings, pointed arches, and a striking bell tower near Matsumoto Castle.

Nozawa Onsen Lodge in Nozawa Onsen Village, Nagano Prefecture, is a three-story wooden dome building completed in 1969, designed by Takamasa Yoshizaka and his U Laboratory. Yoshizaka was one of three Japanese architects who studied directly under Le Corbusier. The lodge features a distinctive acorn-shaped form with green steel-plate cladding, a central spiral staircase, and radially arranged guest rooms on a hexagonal plan. Designed to allow natural snow shedding in an area with over 3 meters of annual snowfall, it has been recommended for registration as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property. The lodge remains open for guests, offering a rare opportunity to stay in a designated cultural property.

Discover the Nonaka Family Residence Main House in Matsushiro, Nagano — a late-Edo period samurai dwelling once occupied by a district magistrate, registered as a Tangible Cultural Property in 2006.

Located in Matsushiro, Nagano City, the Main Hall of Baiou-in is the central building of a Sōtō Zen temple founded in 1672 by the Sanada family to honour Lady Ukyō, a concubine of Sanada Nobuyuki, the first lord of the Matsushiro Domain. After damage in the great Zenkōji Earthquake of 1847, the single-storey wooden hipped-roof hall with a six-room hōjō plan was rebuilt in 1861. It faithfully expresses the character of late-Edo regional Sōtō Zen architecture and was registered, together with its temple gate, as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2014. The temple is also known for an unusual statue of Gyoran Kannon riding a carp and a monument to the children's song 'Mite Gozaru.'

A tiny thatched watermill hut at Hanaya Hotel in Bessho Onsen, barely a ken and a half square, with chestnut posts that resist damp and a waterwheel on its west wall.

A Taisho-era plastered storehouse east of the reception at Hanaya Hotel. The ground floor stored goods; the upper floor, beams left exposed, became a guest room.

Built in 1916, the main bathhouse sits west of the reception at Hanaya Hotel. A single-storey timber hall, its raised vent ridge draws off the steam of a busy bath.

A two-storey timber wing of about 1920 at Hanaya Hotel, with guest rooms below and an upper hall whose ceiling combines coffered panels with a flat mirrored expanse.

A Taisho-era timber wing at Hanaya Hotel, extended in 1949. The kitchen sits below, and a coffered banquet hall framed by corridors and alcoves sits above.

A 1918 detached wing by the bathhouse at Hanaya Hotel. Two guest rooms sit side by side, each an eight-mat room with an anteroom and a private bath, open to the garden.