Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan

Jogu-ji's reception annex in Hiroo, Tokyo, dates to around 1914. Registered in 2017, its plain rooms and comb-shaped transom show restrained Taisho temple design.

Discover Joshoin Hondo Naijin in Tokyo's Shiba Park—a 1769 Edo-period inner sanctuary, registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property, that miraculously survived the Great Kanto Earthquake and Tokyo air raids. Once the family temple of the famed Ichikawa Danjuro kabuki dynasty.

Above Senzoku Pond in Ota, Tokyo, the main house of Shofuso is an early-Showa sukiya home with low eaves, a wide veranda and choice timber. Registered in 2003.

The Shofuso Machiai in Ota, Tokyo is a cedar-log waiting arbor, a registered property where tea guests paused before an early-Showa gathering near Senzoku Pond.

An early-Shōwa gate near Tokyo's Senzoku Pond, barely 1.7 m wide, with a rivet-studded door, a carved frog-leg strut, and reused timber from ancient Hōryū-ji.

Tucked into a quiet residential lane in Ōta Ward, Tokyo, the Showa Lifestyle Museum occupies the former Koizumi Family Residence — a tiny two-story wooden home built in 1951 within the 18-tsubo limit of Japan's postwar public housing loan scheme. Designated a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2002, the house is preserved exactly as it was lived in, from the ice refrigerator in the kitchen to the sunken kotatsu in the family room. It is a rare and intimate window into the everyday life of an ordinary postwar Japanese family, set just eight minutes from Kuga-hara Station and easily combined with a visit to Ikegami Honmon-ji or a walk along the Tamagawa riverside.

Tucked inside Shirayuri University's wooded campus in suburban Tokyo, Megumi-so is a remarkable early-Meiji farmhouse with a triple life: originally the main hall of the Kikuchi family — hereditary village headmen in Izu Shuzenji — it was relocated to Tokyo in 1930 and moved again within the campus in 1967. Registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2014, the building preserves a massive central pillar, a classic six-room plan, and traces of a ceremonial stepped entrance. This guide explains its history, architectural highlights, and how to visit during its annual public opening.

Discover Shinkaiya, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Bunkyo, Tokyo. This wooden two-story soba restaurant, built in 1926, has served handmade noodles for over a century — surviving earthquakes, war, and time itself.

At the foot of Tokyo Tower stands the 1743 vermilion front gate of Shinkō-in, a branch of the Tokugawa temple Zōjō-ji, registered as a Cultural Property in 2001.

Below Tokyo Tower in Higashi-Azabu, Shinkoin's 1955 wooden main hall blends temple carpentry with modern touches, registered as a Tangible Cultural Property in 2017.

The Shinchosha Warehouse in Yaraicho, Shinjuku, Tokyo, is a five-story reinforced concrete book warehouse completed in 1959. Engineered to hold five million volumes, it served as the logistical heart of postwar publishing for Shinchosha, one of Japan's leading publishing houses. Its matching glazed tiles, shared eave line with the adjacent main building, and deep continuous streetscape along Ushigome-Chuo-dori make it a quiet masterpiece of Showa-era commercial modernism. Registered as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property on August 6, 2025, it stands just steps from Kagurazaka Station, perfectly paired with a stroll through the Kagurazaka and Yaraicho districts.

Discover the Shinchosha Main Building in Kagurazaka, Tokyo — a 1957 reinforced concrete office registered as a Tangible Cultural Property. Explore its glazed tile façade, lobby relief celebrating world scripts, and the storied history of one of Japan's most prestigious publishers.

Discover Seikō Lodging, a rare 1930s Western-style boarding house in Tokyo's Ogikubo neighborhood. This Registered Tangible Cultural Property features a distinctive copper dome roof and continues to operate as Ryokan Seikō, offering overnight stays in a living piece of Japanese history.

Discover Solfège School, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Mejiro, Tokyo, designed by renowned modernist architect Junzo Yoshimura in 1967 for his violinist wife. Explore its architectural beauty, musical heritage, and unique solfège education method.

Discover Tiger Building in Kuramae, Tokyo — a Registered Tangible Cultural Property built in 1934. This reinforced concrete apartment building survived the Tokyo air raids and stands as the oldest building in Taito Ward.

The Taiyo Building (Maruishi Building) in Kanda Kaji-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, is a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property completed in 1931. Designed by Yamashita Toshiro—the architect behind Japan's first skyscraper, the Kasumigaseki Building—this rare Romanesque Revival office building features exquisite stone carvings, ornamental reliefs, and guardian lion statues.

Tsubame-yu, a working wooden bathhouse built in 1950 in Ueno, Taito Ward, Tokyo, became in 2008 the first public bathhouse in the city to be registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property. Famous for its early-morning soak from 6 a.m., its scalding water, and a striking rock formation made from real Mount Fuji lava, it offers an authentic encounter with postwar sento culture in the heart of Okachimachi.

Rising 62 meters above the Sekiguchi neighborhood of Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward, the Tokyo Cathedral Bell Tower is a masterwork of postwar modernist religious architecture by Tange Kenzo. With a footprint of just 12 square meters, four subtly twisted concrete faces, four German-cast bells suspended near the summit, and a cross-shaped pinnacle, the tower was designated a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in August 2025. This guide introduces its history, design, and how to visit.

Rising on a hilltop in Tokyo's Sekiguchi district, St. Mary's Cathedral was completed in 1964 to a design by Kenzo Tange and is celebrated as a masterwork of post-war modernism. Discover the eight stainless-steel shells that form a cross from above, the column-free sanctuary lit by a cross-shaped skylight, the bell tower, the Lourdes grotto, and how to plan your visit.

Rebuilt in 1932 after the Great Kanto Earthquake, this reinforced-concrete building on the Etchujima campus wears scratch tile and a great semicircular arch.