Meiji
Hokkaido · 明治Browse Hokkaido’s cultural heritage from the Meiji period (1868 – 1912). Filter by type and keyword, with concise stories, maps, and travel tips.
The former Abashiri Prison in Hokkaido, rebuilt in 1912 by its inmates, keeps the only complete timber radial cell block in Japan, now in the Abashiri Prison Museum.
The Futamigaoka branch of Abashiri Prison, a prison farm opened in 1896 for self-sufficiency, keeps five buildings of 1896 to 1930, moved to the museum in 1999.
This 1877 wooden office shows how the Hokkaido Development Commission's builders copied American pattern books, visible in its ridge ornament and porch gable.
The former Hanada family bansho on Hokkaido's coast is a herring fishery from around 1905. The largest surviving bansho in Hokkaido, it once lodged some 200 crews.
The Tachikawa Family House Shop in Hakodate, a brick shop of 1900 with a timber truss roof, looks like a Japanese storehouse and mixes Japanese and Western styles.
The former Otaru branch of Nippon Yusen Kaisha, a stone building completed in 1906, keeps its original fittings and hosted the 1906 talks on the Sakhalin border.
Built by the Kaitakushi in 1880 and opened as Emperor Meiji's lodging, this white clapboard hotel in Sapporo's Nakajima Park keeps its ultramarine trim.
Nine Meiji farm buildings on the Hokkaido University campus, built on Clark's plan for large-scale stock farming. Free entry, three barns open inside each summer.
A thatched settler farmhouse in Date City left by the Watari Date migration. Two rooms and an earth floor, heavily framed, with a plan echoed by later militia huts.
Asahikawa's last surviving army riding hall, built in brick for winter cavalry drill. Iron Fink trusses span it, and a bus company services vehicles inside it today.
Built in 1899 to season carriage timber, this square brick building in Asahikawa shows Flemish bond walls, three-centred gable arches and overburnt brick trim.
Where carriage woodwork was cut and fitted from 1899, this Asahikawa brick workshop pairs broad arched windows with slit openings and now serves as a public hall.
This small wooden building in Hidaka Town, Hokkaido keeps two formal rooms salvaged in 1951 from a 1911 imperial lodging, under a coved coffered ceiling in hinoki.
Facing the Pacific in Hidaka Town, Hokkaido, this late Meiji house joins a Western reception room to two tatami rooms by a corridor turning a right angle.
A Meiji-era wooden office in southern Sapporo, built in 1887, honoring Edwin Dun, the Ohio rancher who founded Hokkaido's dairy industry from Makomanai in 1876.
A single-storey brick warehouse of 1904 west of the office in the Kamikawa Warehouses, Asahikawa. Its long side faces Miyashita-dori; in 2001 it was a public hall.
A 1903 brick warehouse at the west corner of the Kamikawa Warehouses, Asahikawa, with king post trusses and a dentilled cornice; once a chair gallery, now a gallery.
A 1910 brick warehouse on the station side of the Kamikawa Warehouses, Asahikawa, with stretcher bond walls and a two-tier dentil cornice; a free gallery since 1997.
The first of the Kamikawa Warehouses in Asahikawa, finished in 1900: a brick warehouse at the north corner with a three-centred arch door, now a rehearsal hall.
A 1904 brick warehouse east of the office in the Kamikawa Warehouses, Asahikawa: gabled, tiled, laid in English bond with dark brick corner piers, a pair with No. 1.