Meiji

The storeroom of the Ogawa Family Residence, on the west boundary beside the maid's quarters, part of the row of service buildings that kept this late-Meiji villa running.

Built in 1907 as the residence of American citizen M.J. Shea, Kitano Monogatarikan is a colonial-style wooden Western house in Kobe's historic Kitano district. After being devastated by the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, it was faithfully reconstructed and registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2003. Now home to the Starbucks Coffee Kobe Kitano Ijinkan Store — Japan's first Starbucks in a registered cultural property — it offers a unique experience blending Meiji-era heritage with modern café culture.

Discover the Former Kaisaki Clinic, a Meiji-era Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Asago City, Hyogo. Explore this evocative medical building nestled within the historic Kuchiganaya silver mining townscape, part of Japan Heritage's Silver Horse Road, Mineral Road.

Where the Yoshikawa plot meets the road in Ikuno, Asago City, this 19-square-metre earthen storehouse of 1872 holds one tall room under a separate roof. Free entry.

Built in 1907 by industrialist Muto Sanji on the Maiko coast, this colonial-style Western residence was designed by Okuma Yoshikuni, the architect who later oversaw the construction of Japan's National Diet Building. Now open to the public within Maiko Park, this Registered Tangible Cultural Property features a distinctive circular balcony, natural slate roof, and original Meiji-era furnishings.

Built in 1888 for the Nanakamaya merchants of Hamasaka, this timber townhouse keeps nine tatami rooms behind a lattice front and now opens daily as a town museum.

Standing in Kobe's Suma Seaside Park, the Former Wadamisaki Lighthouse is Japan's oldest surviving iron lighthouse, built in 1884. Known affectionately as the 'Red Lighthouse of Suma,' this Registered Tangible Cultural Property tells the story of Japan's opening to the world and its early modernization.

Standing directly in front of the east exit of JR Ikuno Station, Kusaka Ryokan is a wooden two-story inn with a three-story wing, built in 1910 and expanded in 1921. As one of only a couple of wooden three-story buildings to have stood along the rail line between Himeji and Kinosaki, it is a remarkably rare survivor and was registered as a Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2004. Its sukiya-style tatami parlors and crane- and cloud-shaped openwork windows offer a vivid glimpse of refined Meiji- and Taisho-era inn architecture in Kuchiganaya, the historic silver mining town of Ikuno.

Kuniumi-no-Yakata, the former Mihara County Office, stands within Awaji Farm Park England Hill in Minamiawaji City, Hyogo Prefecture. Built in 1884 (Meiji 17), it is the oldest surviving county office building in Hyogo and the earliest pseudo-Western (gi-yofu) building on Awaji Island. The wooden two-story structure features a gabled tile roof, clapboard siding with imitation cornerstones, and a striking front porch with paired square and round columns supporting a relief-decorated pediment — all expressions of how Meiji-era Japanese carpenters reinterpreted Western architecture. Damaged in the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, the building was carefully reconstructed at its current site in 2007 and registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2008.

Discover the Kuroda Seiuemon Shoten Miso Storehouse, a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Miki City, Hyogo. Part of an 11-building complex belonging to the oldest surviving hardware wholesaler in Japan's premier tool-making town, this mid-Meiji storehouse offers a rare window into traditional merchant life.

Built in 1904 as the first chapel of Kwansei Gakuin, this red-brick Gothic Revival building designed by British architect M. Wignall has survived wartime bombing and a major earthquake to become a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property. Featuring a rare hammer-beam truss roof and grapevine-patterned windows, it now serves as a free-admission literature museum showcasing approximately 124 writers connected to Kobe.

Goshobo Dozo, an 1890 earthen-walled storehouse at Arima Onsen in Kobe, once held tea utensils beside a tea house. Registered in 2021, it is now a craft gallery.

Goshobo Honkan at Arima Onsen in Kobe is a late-Meiji timber inn building above the Takigawa, extended in 1931 and registered in 2021. Day bathing opens part of it.

The north wall of the Konishi Family Residence in Amagasaki, Hyogo, runs about 30 metres. Its late-Meiji brick core has a scraped-mortar face and a tiled top.

The 1911 main house of the Konishi Family Residence in Amagasaki, Hyogo, is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property with a broad tiled irimoya roof.

The sunagura storehouse of the Konishi Family Residence in Amagasaki, Hyogo, is a plastered two-storey dozo of about 1904, now a Registered Property.

The barn of the Konishi Family Residence in Amagasaki, Hyogo, is a long single-storey timber building of the late Meiji era, now a Registered Property.

The west stone wall of the Konishi Family Residence in Amagasaki, Hyogo, runs about 50 metres of late-Meiji granite, laid five courses high with capstones.

The gate of the Konishi Family Residence in Amagasaki, Hyogo, is a late-Meiji timber structure with a tiled gable roof, twin doors and a side wicket door.

Nishiwaki's former Fujii residence kept clothing in this late Meiji dozo of 79 square metres, split inside by a thick wall into halves framed two different ways.