Meiji

A 1.2-meter Flemish-bond brick fence with five buttresses, raised in 1910 around Japan's first Nagaragawa River hydroelectric plant. A working piece of Meiji-era industrial heritage in Mino, Gifu, registered as a Tangible Cultural Property in 2000.

Tucked into the mountains of Mino City, Gifu Prefecture, the Nagaragawa Power Station No. 1 Settling Basin Waterproof Wall is a 1910 Registered Tangible Cultural Property still in active service. Its roughly pentagonal, 60-meter brick-and-cobblestone enclosure—punctuated by four elegant semicircular arched gates—regulates the water that powers Gifu's first hydroelectric station. Discover this quiet jewel of Meiji-era engineering heritage along the Nagara River.

Built in 1910, this short brick-and-stone arched culvert lies on the power station's conduit. A granite portal and iron gate flush trapped silt from the settling basin.

Built in 1910, the Hidani Aqueduct Bridge carries the Nagara River Power Station's conduit across a valley, its curving five-arch span holding an English-bond channel.

Finished in 1910 as Nagoya's first power plant, the Nagara River Power Station main building still runs today, its brick gable joining a rose window with onigawara tiles.

Built in 1910, the Yunohoradani Aqueduct Bridge is the longest of the station's brick water bridges. Granite springers carry six-course arches beside a mountain road.

Built around 1910, the Spillway Crossing Bridge is a small reinforced-concrete arch by the station's head tank, among the earliest concrete bridges in the Chubu region.

Rebuilt after Takayama's fire of 1892, this large timber machiya sets its second storey back half a ken behind slatted itarenji screens. Registered in 2017.

Built in 1906 as Akechi's sixth town hall, the Nihon Taisho-mura Village Office in Ena has a Tuscan-columned porch. Registered in 2000, and free to enter.

The Storehouse of the Hanada-Imai Residence in Mimayano, Gero, dates to about 1875. A two-storey plaster dozo, plain in form but carefully finished around its front door.

The Mizuno Family Residence Storehouse is a small Meiji kura in Gujo Hachiman with white plaster walls, an arabesque window head and a shingled eave; listed 2007.

House of 1893 at Okute-juku on the Nakasendo in Mizunami, Gifu, once the inn and freight house of the "Shinmori" branch of the Morikawa family, with a lattice front.

The storehouse of the Yatsusankan inn in Hida-Furukawa, Gifu, from the late Meiji era, is a large two-storey storehouse between the wings, framed in massive timbers.

The main building of the Yatsusankan inn in Hida-Furukawa, Gifu, built in 1905 at the foot of a bridge, has an open hall and guest rooms each in a different design.

The Yabashi Family Residence Tea House in Ogaki dates to about 1868. Joined to the Shoin, it holds a tea room and mizuya, with slender knotted posts and deep eaves.

The Yabashi Family Residence West Storehouse in Ogaki, built c. 1868, is the largest of its 3 kura at 61 square metres, with 2 doorways and many plastered shutters.

Mid-Meiji inn building in Takayama with a karahafu canopy over the entrance and projecting lattices on both floors, its interior finely worked; still a ryokan.

An 1872 clay storehouse of Hida Furukawa's Hourai brewery on the Seto River, square in plan, half earthen and half timber floor, under a stepped okiyane roof.

The 1881 brewhouse of Hida Furukawa's Hourai sake brewery: at 133 square meters the largest of its clay storehouses, with south-facing doors on the Seto River.