Shōwa

Tucked inside a historic high school campus in Iwaki, Fukushima, Sakuragaoka Kaikan is a 1938 wooden library building whose round windows and arched modernist details earned it Registered Tangible Cultural Property status — and gave the school its present name.

Standing in Tochikubo, Kashima Ward of Minamisoma City in Fukushima, the Otani Family Residence Middle Storehouse is a two-story earthen-walled storehouse from the early Showa period, registered as a national cultural property. Together with the East Storehouse and gate, it lines the historic Salt Road that linked the coastal Hamakaido with the inland Oshu-kaido, preserving refined details such as spiral-motif wall bands and namako-kabe checkered walls. Discover how sake, soy sauce, and the trading culture of old Soma shaped this landscape.

The Ōtani Family Residence Gate in Tochikubo, Kashima-ku, Minamisoma, is a nationally registered tangible cultural property. Built in the early Shōwa era in the traditional Kōrai-mon style, this wooden gate stands between two plaster storehouses along the historic Salt Road, preserving the atmosphere of a once-thriving merchant trading hub.

The street frontage of the Sasa Masamune brewery in Kitakata, Fukushima: a yakui-mon gate of about 1927 and a 35-meter wall, spared by the June 2026 fire.

The Nippon Sei Ko Kai Koriyama St. Peter and St. Paul Church, standing on the Hayama hillside in Koriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture, is a reinforced concrete Gothic chapel completed in 1932. Designed by architect Uebayashi Keikichi, the church features refined buttress detailing, a Norman-style tower, an innovative scissors truss and arched beam roof structure, and stained glass made from Czechoslovakian glass. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2018, it represents the culmination of prewar Anglican church architecture in Japan.

The Hayashi Family Residence in Zaimokucho, Aizu-Wakamatsu City, Fukushima Prefecture, is a Nationally Registered Tangible Cultural Property built in 1927. This grand dwelling of over 100 tsubo features rare yellow plaster walls with weatherboard cladding and a prestigious irimoya-style tiled roof with masterfully layered gables, creating an imposing presence. Also designated as Aizu-Wakamatsu Historical Landscape Building No. 18, it stands as a masterpiece of early Showa-period residential architecture.

The detached parlor of Fukunishi Honten in Aizuwakamatsu, added about 1930, is a refined sukiya-style wing facing the garden, with plain-wood rooms above.