Shōwa
Hokkaido · 昭和Browse Hokkaido’s cultural heritage from the Shōwa period (1926 – 1989). Filter by type and keyword, with concise stories, maps, and travel tips.
Chemist Suginome Harusada built this Tudor-style Sapporo house in 1933. The city's first with central heating, it remains a home, viewable only from the pavement.
A brick school in Ashibetsu, Hokkaido, rebuilt in 1954 after a fire with funds from a Mitsui colliery. Its 106-metre classroom range holds 36 rooms. Registered 2008.
A timber gymnasium of 1954 beside the brick Raijo school in Ashibetsu, Hokkaido. Its two-hinged trusses span the hall without columns. Registered in 2008.
Built in 1950, the Hakodate Park Kodomo no Kuni Aerial Ferris Wheel is Japan's oldest operating Ferris wheel, designated as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2019. Standing 10 meters tall with an octagonal wheel and open-air bench-style gondolas, it offers views of the Tsugaru Strait and Mount Hakodate. Experience the nostalgic charm of the Showa era at this beloved retro amusement park within historic Hakodate Park.
The Hakodate YWCA Hall in Shōin-chō, Hakodate, Hokkaido, is a wooden residence built around 1926 in the upscale 'Bunka-mura' (Culture Village) district. Registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property in 2016, it features a distinctive asymmetrical façade with half-timbered green gable decorations and pale pink clapboard walls, crowned by a porch that blends Japanese karahafu curves with Western Doric columns. Still actively used as the Hakodate YWCA headquarters, it offers a café, community programs, and a window into early Showa-era suburban life.
Discover the Hinoki Shinyaku Rusutsu Mountain Lodge, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Hokkaido designed by legendary architect Seiichi Shirai in 1972, featuring distinctive brickwork and sculptural interiors at the foot of Mount Shiribetsu.
Discover Prairie House (Former Sada Residence), a 1928 Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Hakodate's Motomachi district. Designed by Tanoue Yoshiya, a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright, this Wrightian residence features striking geometric windows and deep horizontal eaves.
A 1935 reinforced-concrete hall in the precinct of Hokkaido Gokoku Shrine, Asahikawa, built as the Army 7th Division's memorial museum and registered in 2015.
By Mankei Pond below Mount Soranuma, this 1928 log lodge was designed by Swiss architect Max Hinder at Prince Chichibu's wish. It sleeps up to thirty in Alpine style.
In Hokkaido University's Tomakomai forest, this 1935 former specimen store joins a buttressed, chapel-like block to a barn-like wing with a gambrel roof and dormers.
In Nibutani, Biratori, the former Munro Residence was the anthropologist's own home and clinic, a three-story mansard-roofed clapboard house, now a research base.
A 1936 half-timbered mansion in central Sapporo, built as the new wing of the Mitsui villa and the governor's residence since 1953. House and garden are free.
This 1928 timber store at Nakashibetsu in eastern Hokkaido lifts its floor 60 cm off the ground and breaks its roof into a gambrel pierced by four dormers.
Built in 1928 at Nakashibetsu in eastern Hokkaido, this small timber shed carries a square lantern turret windowed on all four faces. Registered in 2009.
A 1927 forestry research building in Ebetsu, Hokkaido, with a brick ground floor under a half-timbered upper storey. Registered in 2001, it now houses a cafe.
Erimo's 1928 concrete lighthouse was retired in 1978, its hill cut away for a park while the tower stayed put. Look for the corbelled arch and dentil cornice.
Hongyoji Old Ossuary in Kushiro, Hokkaido is a 1931 charnel hall linked to the main hall, registered in 2025 for how its solid exterior shapes the compound.