Shōwa

Discover the Ikaho Kanko Hotel, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Ikaho Onsen, Gunma. Built in 1929 as a Western-style hotel for foreign guests, this wooden three-story building with a five-tiered pagoda tower offers a window into early Showa hospitality and the resort town's international heritage.

At the north exit of JR Maebashi Station, No. 1 of the Jomo Soko warehouses is a 1949 concrete building dressed as an older storehouse. The silk firm still works here.

At the centre of the Jomo Soko yard, No. 7 is the largest warehouse at 463 square metres. Built in 1950, it stored grain, not silk, under an exposed timber truss.

Discover the Karasugawa Upstream Sabo Dam in Takasaki, Gunma — a 1951 gravity concrete dam registered as a national tangible cultural property. Built with US aid funding and advanced stonework, it creates a stunning waterfall-like landscape in a lush mountain gorge.

Perched at Torii Pass 1,390 m above sea level, this is the surviving summit terminus of a short-lived cable railway that ran for barely a decade in the late 1950s and 1960s. Designated a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2018, the reinforced-concrete station and its stub-end platform now host a panoramic café and railway museum operated year-round by Hobonichi Co., Ltd.

Built in 1930 and registered in 2006, the only surviving station of the Kusakaru Electric Railway keeps Hosei University's initial worked into its entrance transom.

A two-storey wooden village hall of 1958, registered in 2020 and open free as Takasaki's folk museum, with its clerical floor and assembly chamber little altered.

Four reinforced-concrete posts faced in Oya stone, built in 1928, mark the street front of the former Serada village office in Ota, Gunma. Registered in 2005.

Built in 1928 in Ota, Gunma, this two-storey reinforced-concrete village hall keeps its U-shaped plan, an Oya stone base and a Lombard band along the parapet.

Built in 1938 to run Tatebayashi's geisha district, this rare surviving kenban office pairs a curved karahafu porch with a 36-mat hall and a rehearsal stage.

A 19-square-metre storehouse of 1929 that reads as a plastered dozo but is built of reinforced concrete, its roof framing copying the logic of a timber frame.

Built in 1927 inside a Kiryu silk mill compound, this timber house sets an Art Deco parlour against tatami rooms facing the garden. It now works as a restaurant.

A 1935 sawtooth weaving mill in Kiryu, Gunma, walled in Oya stone and registered in 2006. Converted in 1999, it now trades as a hair salon; view it from the street.

Discover the Former Matsuoka Store Warehouse in Kiryu, Gunma Prefecture — a nationally registered tangible cultural property built in 1935 that preserves the legacy of Japan's textile trading heritage in a charming two-story storehouse.

Discover the Former Matsuoka Shoten Office in Kiryu, Gunma Prefecture — a 1935 registered tangible cultural property that blends Western-style brick-tile facades with traditional Japanese craftsmanship, offering a window into Japan's thriving Showa-era textile industry.

Built in 1938 as the record store of Manba town hall, this two-storey dozo in Kanna, Gunma pairs clay walls with a slate roof and iron doors. Now Gallery Yorozu.

Discover Kiryu Textile Hall Former Building (Kiryu Orimono Kaikan Kyukan), a 1934 Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Gunma Prefecture. This retro-modern scratch tile landmark tells the story of Kiryu's 1,300-year silk weaving tradition and now serves as a textile memorial hall with exhibitions and shopping.

The High-District Distribution Reservoir on Suidōyama in Kiryu City, Gunma Prefecture, is a reinforced concrete waterworks facility built in 1932. Part of a remarkably complete network of early Shōwa-era water supply infrastructure — a rarity in Japan — it is registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property. Explore this hidden heritage gem alongside panoramic views from Suidōyama Park and the Ōkawa Museum of Art, set against the backdrop of Kiryu's 1,300-year textile tradition.

Discover Gunma Kaikan in Maebashi, a 1930 Renaissance-style public hall designed by architect Koichi Sato. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property, this historic landmark features scratch-tile facades, art glass windows, and a beloved basement restaurant.

Discover the Gunma Prefectural Government Main Building, Japan's first prefectural government building registered as a Tangible Cultural Property. Designed by architect Sato Koichi in 1928, this elegant Western-style building in Maebashi features scratch tile facades and Art Deco details.