Shōwa

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.

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 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.

At Annaka Church in Gunma sits Gientei, a 1935 wooden study built for pastor Kashiwagi Gien, whose 459-issue monthly opposed Japan's wars and empire until 1936.

A 1954 timber missionary house at Annaka Church in Gunma, with clapboard below, mortar above, a bay window and 3 chimneys in the Meiji-era manner. Registered 2004.

Built in 1930 on land given by a weaving-mill owner, this wooden church in Kiryu, Gunma, is the oldest church building in the city. Registered in 2024.

A timber nursery school built in 1950 by Shimamura Church in Isesaki, Gunma, renovated in 1953 and extended in 1954. Registered with the church chapel in 2008.

Completed in 1955 above Haruna Shrine in Takasaki, this 69-metre erosion-control dam is faced in diagonally coursed stone. Free to visit, five minutes on foot.

At Ōana Onsen in Minakami, Gunma, this bath sits deep in a tunnel hewn into the bedrock, where Moralogy's founder Hiroike Chikuro convalesced. It was listed in 2025.

At Ōana in Minakami, this changing room has a double cedar-bark roof and an exposed king-post truss. Hiroike Chikuro died at this site in 1938; it was listed in 2025.

At Tanigawa in Minakami stands a shrine of about 7.3 square metres enshrining Amaterasu, clad in cedar bark and built in 1936. It was listed in 2025.

At Tanigawa Onsen in Minakami stands Reitaku-kan, a single-storey retreat with a bath on its east end. Hiroike Chikuro stayed here in his final years; listed in 2025.

Studio-home built in 1948 by the painter Kondo Yoshio beside the Hirose River in Maebashi, Gunma, with an International Style front; a small art museum since 1997.

The Hoshi Onsen Chojukan Annex is a 1940 two-story guest wing beside the Hoshi River in Minakami, Gunma, with plastered walls and glass doors facing the water.

Reinforced-concrete church of 1932 in Maebashi, Gunma, with twin towers square below and octagonal above and a vaulted nave; it survived the wartime air raid.