Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan

Discover Shioya Bridge in Awaji Island Park — a 1918 Taisho-era pony bowstring double Warren truss made of riveted Yawata steel. One of only four such bridges remaining in Japan, this Registered Tangible Cultural Property gracefully spans Showa Pond and offers a quiet encounter with Japan's industrial heritage.

Standing along the Otani River in the heart of Kinosaki Onsen, Hyogo Prefecture, Shin Kameya Honkan is a three-story wooden ryokan designed by sukiya master architect Hirata Masaya — the first building he created in this historic hot spring town. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2015 for its elegant chidori-hafu gables, fine lattice windows, and refined tokonoma details, the inn offers guests a rare chance to stay in a living piece of Japanese architectural heritage while enjoying the town's famous seven public bathhouses.

Completed in 1930, the Shinko Trade Building is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property standing in Kobe's historic Shinko waterfront district. With its scratch-tile facade, ship-prow corner curve, and geometric Art Deco stained glass, this early Showa office building remains one of Kobe's finest examples of interwar commercial architecture — still in active use as a tenant building for maritime businesses.

Discover Hontokuji Anzaisho, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Himeji, Hyogo. This Edo-period shoin-style building once hosted Emperor Meiji and features exquisite tokonoma alcove decorations and refined craftsmanship.

Located in Nada Ward, Kobe, the Somatani Sabō Dam was completed in 1956 as a gravity concrete erosion-control structure on Mt. Rokko. Featuring an innovative central slit in its spillway, it was registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2014. The dam stands along a popular hiking route to Mt. Maya and tells the story of erosion-control engineering after the devastating 1938 Hanshin flood.

The Main Hall of Daishin-ji Temple in Hōjō, Kasai City, Hyogo Prefecture, is an Edo-period Pure Land Buddhist hall registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2010. Belonging to the Seizan Zenrin-ji branch of the Jōdo-shū sect, it stands quietly along the old highway of Hōjō-no-shuku, a former post town that flourished as the temple town of Sumiyoshi Shrine and Sakami-ji, contributing to one of Hyogo Prefecture's most evocative heritage streetscapes.

At the property's western edge stands this sukiya-style gate: round-log posts, three-tier framed doors and a cedar-bark roof over wooden shingles, worked with care.

This small plastered storehouse east of the Japanese wing has a honshogawara tile roof and upper eaves sealed in white lime, a quiet record of a Hanshin garden suburb.

Completed in 1928 in Takarazuka's Hanayashiki garden suburb, this registered house pairs a varied hipped-and-gabled silhouette with Art Deco and Secession interiors.

Added to the Western house in 1954, this Japanese wing has an eight-mat room with a polished-log alcove post and a corridor under an arched boat-bottom ceiling.

The front gate and wall of the Takatsu residence near Himeji, a gabled munemon with white-plaster walls. A frog-leg strut supports the ridge, marking it as formal.

The kitchen and well area of the Takatsu residence near Himeji, an L-shaped service block on the road corner where a kitchen wing meets a well wing.

The tool storehouse of the Takatsu residence near Himeji, an early-Meiji plastered dozo with shippo-pattern namako tilework. It is the oldest of the five buildings.

The main house of the Takatsu family, doctors near Himeji since the late Edo period. Built around 1894, it has a rare kara-hafu entrance gable and a former clinic wing.

The garden gate and wall of the Takatsu residence near Himeji, a bracket-arm gate dividing the forecourt from the reception garden. It is the newest of the five.

Discover the former Matsumoto Residence in Takarazuka, Hyogo — a beautifully preserved 1937 Western-style house designed by University of California-trained architect Kawasaki Shinobu, now a nationally registered tangible cultural property.

An 1820 tea house on the grounds of a Sasayama sake-brewing family, where a six-mat room and a lintel rail can be closed to the classical four-and-a-half-mat tea size.

A large late-Meiji earthen storehouse on the Nishio grounds in Sasayama, on a granite base with plaster up to the eaves. Once a brewery store, now a museum and gallery.

A late-Edo annex at the northeast corner of the Nishio compound in Sasayama, following the old San'in highway. Its stepped roof, gate and wall frame the entrance garden.

A two-storey earthen storehouse on the Nishio grounds in Sasayama, joining two separate vaults under one placed roof, with twin doorways under an earthen canopy.