Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan

Sukiya house by Ogi Rodo, built in Tokyo in 1935 and moved to Yoshii, Takasaki, in 1990, with a tea room named by Matsunaga Yasuzaemon and a famed suikinkutsu.

Former office of 1932 at the Motojuku plant in Kiryu, Gunma, with scratch-tile walls, tall windows and pilasters, now used as the city Waterworks Museum.

Former water distribution office of 1932 on Suidoyama hill, Kiryu, Gunma, in a Wright-influenced lodge style with scratch tiles and Spanish roof tiles; open free.

A tiny 1867 household Inari shrine in Kiryu, dated by an ink inscription under its floor, with a carved dragon and lions, kept inside a lattice-fronted shelter.

A late-Meiji townhouse in Kiryu whose street front is all lattice windows, with the entrance tucked into a south lean-to and a hipped roof end. Registered in 2006.

A 1922 two-storey reception building in Kiryu: timber on three sides, brick with small windows on the north lane side, and two tatami rooms upstairs off a corridor.

A two-storey earthen-walled storehouse built by sake brewers before the Soga family arrived, shown in an 1889 print; its plastered north wall anchors a fire barrier.

A pair of rough-faced granite gateposts of about 1922 on Kiryu's Honcho-dori, with stepped edokiri corners and an iron-pipe karahafu ornament holding a lamp.

The 1936 entrance and office wing of Tomioka City Social Education Center in Gunma, a hipped-roof building with a gently pitched, straight-lined porch. Free entry.

The 1936 auditorium of Tomioka City Social Education Center in Gunma: a 60-mat hall backed by a platform and former shrine room, with a layered hip-and-gable front.

The 1936 main gate of Tomioka City Social Education Center in Gunma, a 3.6-metre yakuimon with side walls and a wicket door, prized for its plain, heavy frame.

Just a two-minute walk from JR Takasaki Station, surrounded by modern office towers, stands a two-story wooden inn from 1932 that is still in active use today. Founded in 1879 and famed during the war years as a station-front ryokan in the military city of Takasaki—and later as a favored retreat of novelist Shiba Ryotaro—Toyodaya Ryokan Main Building is registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property of Japan, prized for its irimoya roof, gable-entry plan, and graceful karahafu entrance.

An 1894 wing of tatami rooms in Kiryu that wraps a family pawn storehouse under one roof. An ink inscription on a beam records the date and that year's war.

A wooden street gate of about 1937 beside the store on Kiryu's Honcho-dori, with gray plaster side walls, sliding doors that slide into them, and a passage behind.

A tiny 1937 bathhouse in Kiryu, 6.2 square meters, with bath, changing room and stoking area, plumbed with running water after the town waterworks opened in 1932.

A long, narrow 1937 storehouse in Kiryu of cut andesite, plastered white above a stone base, which the family called the rayon storehouse after its contents.

A 1937 reception wing in Kiryu: a concrete room with a rooftop balcony and glass-block skylight, and a wooden 2-story part once used as a Go parlor. Registered 2005.

A 2-story 1922 shop on Kiryu's Honcho-dori with a hipped street end, degeta eaves, gray plaster walls and a tall upper floor. Still a paint store; registered 2005.

A 2-story 1937 storehouse in Kiryu, built of reinforced concrete but painted to look like a white-plastered kura under a tiled gable roof. Registered in 2005.

Standing in Takasaki City, Gunma Prefecture, the Niijima Gakuen Junior College Research Building is the only surviving circular schoolhouse in Gunma. Built in 1956 as the schoolhouse of Takasaki Municipal Girls' High School, this three-story reinforced concrete cylinder was designed by Kanao Sakamoto, the Japanese architect celebrated for his circular school designs. With a spiral staircase at its core and five fan-shaped classrooms arranged around the perimeter, the building was registered as a Tangible Cultural Property in 2018. Discover this remarkable survivor of Japan's 1950s architectural experimentation.