Meiji

Rebuilt in 1875, the Itsukushima Shrine Great Torii is anchored by nothing: pine piles, gravel in its box lintel and its own mass keep it upright in the sea.

Discover Shunpukan, the Important Cultural Property residence of Confucian scholar Rai Shunpu in Takehara, Hiroshima. Explore this elegant samurai-style townhouse connected to Rai Sanyo and Japan's Edo-period intellectual heritage.

The Ihara Sōjūrō Residence main house in Shiraichi, Higashihiroshima, is an 1871 ironcasters' townhouse. Metal fittings on its lattice recall the trade. Registered 2025.

The Ihara Sōjūrō Residence detached wing in Shiraichi is a refined Meiji guest room and tea room, said to have lodged a prince. Registered 2025 as a design model.

The Ihara Sōjūrō Residence gate and wall edge an old street in Shiraichi. Its stone-stepped yakui-mon gate bears castle-style shachihoko ornaments. Registered 2025.

A late Meiji gate in Higashihiroshima, Hiroshima, 6.3 m wide with a 3 m plank-door opening and a wicket door. Registered in 2012, it predates the house it faces.

The oldest building at Kanemitsu Brewery, this early-Meiji dozo storehouse is where the acclaimed Kamokinshu sake, revived through hand brewing in 2003, is still made.

Running about 39 metres at Kanemitsu Brewery in Hiroshima, this long dozo storehouse holds the cold-kept tanks that guard the fresh, lightly sparkling Kamokinshu sake.

Discover the Kanemitsu Sake Brewery Packaging Building, a nationally registered tangible cultural property in Higashihiroshima, Hiroshima. Part of an award-winning sake brewery founded in 1880, this historic structure embodies Japan's traditional brewing heritage.

Facing Saijo's sake street, Kamoizumi Shuzo's late-Meiji main house sets a merchant's earthen passage beside a formal ten-mat guest room behind a latticed front.

The brewery's smallest building, this 16-square-metre late-Meiji storehouse was moved whole by hikiya, its near-windowless walls edged with water-shedding tiles.

Discover the Former Etajima Naval Petty Officers' Club (Kaiyusha), a nationally registered tangible cultural property built in 1907. This rare wooden Western-style building on Etajima Island preserves the legacy of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy with its original brick foundations, clapboard walls, and sash windows.

Explore Kaiyusha, a rare wooden Western-style building from 1905 on Etajima Island, Hiroshima. This Nationally Registered Tangible Cultural Property preserves the history of Japan's Imperial Naval Academy and offers visitors a unique glimpse into Meiji-era military architecture.

This 1893 earthen storehouse pairs white plaster with a boarded base. Its projecting drip tiles, peaked at the gable ends, turn rain-shedding into crisp form.

Added in 1909, this reception wing opens to a pond garden. Its great room holds the finest carving on the site, including peonies with a lion cut from one Yakusugi board.

Built in 1891 by the Hozawa merchants, this is old Higashijo's largest town house, known for its layered yatsumune roof and black-plaster wall of flower windows.

The smallest of the Hida estate's registered buildings, this tiny Kannon hall stands over the family's own grave, a rare record of local island devotion.

The barn of the Hino Residence in Aki-Takata, Hiroshima, from the mid-Meiji era. Some 17 metres long, it held materials in its north half and a cowshed in its south.

Discover Minaga no Sekimon, a registered tangible cultural property in Higashihiroshima, Hiroshima. This rare Meiji-period stone arch aqueduct bridge, built around 1882, showcases a unique construction technique using thin stone slabs wrapped around a cut-stone arch.

Built in 1885 on a headman's estate in Mukaishima, Onomichi, this 114-square-metre tiled gatehouse follows a gate drawn in an 1825 house diagram. Registered 1997.