Meiji

Discover the Akagi Family Residence, one of Japan's best-preserved Meiji-era farmhouse complexes with 16 registered cultural properties. Explore traditional architecture, silkworm-rearing rooms, and authentic rural heritage near Kinosaki Onsen in Hyogo Prefecture.

Discover the Iwasake Residence Storehouse, a nationally registered cultural property in Akashi City. This beautifully preserved 1904 Meiji-era farmhouse features distinctive black and white stucco walls amidst modern urbanization.

Standing at the northern tip of Awaji Island in Hyogo Prefecture, Esaki Lighthouse was designed by the British engineer R. H. Brunton and first lit in 1871, making it one of Japan's earliest Western-style lighthouses and the third-oldest still in service. Designated a National Important Cultural Property in 2022, the lighthouse offers sweeping views of the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge and preserves moving traces of the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. This guide explores its history, highlights, and visitor information.

A late-Meiji brick stable with a round corner tower in Kobe's Sorakuen garden. One of few Western-style stables left in Japan, it is an Important Cultural Property.

An 1902 colonial ijinkan in Kobe, moved to Sorakuen in 1963 as an Important Cultural Property. Note its arcaded ground floor and acanthus-capped veranda columns.

Discover the Former Kobe Foreign Settlement Building No. 15, the sole surviving structure from Kobe's historic foreign settlement era. This Important Cultural Property, once the American Consulate, features colonial-style architecture, seismic isolation technology, and now houses a stylish restaurant.

Discover Kobayashi House (Former Sharp Residence), a nationally designated Important Cultural Property in Kobe's Kitano Ijinkan district. Built in 1903 for U.S. Consul General Hunter Sharp, this colonial-style mansion known as "Moegi no Yakata" features arabesque staircases, ornate bay windows, and sweeping harbor views.

Completed in 1900 and still in use, Kobe's Gohonmatsu Dam was Japan's first gravity concrete water-supply dam, the core of nine Meiji structures listed in 2006.

The Former Hunter House, located within the Kobe Oji Zoo in Nada Ward, is the largest surviving foreign residence (ijinkan) in Kobe and a nationally designated Important Cultural Property. Originally built around 1889 and extensively renovated by British industrialist Edward Hazlett Hunter in 1907, this Victorian-era timber-and-brick mansion features a stunning colonnade veranda with diamond-lattice windows, marble mantelpieces, teak floors, and English stained glass.

The only Meiji building among the nine, this two-storey annex north-west of the main house holds a small room, bath and privy, and links to the house by a corridor.

The back gate of the Ogawa Family Residence, a small udegimon at the southwest of the grounds. Barely 1.3 meters across, it carries about 13.8 meters of attached wall.

The front gate of the Ogawa Family Residence, a late-Meiji villa in Miki. At the center of the north frontage, it opens onto a garden path up to the main house.

The main house of the Ogawa Family Residence, a late-Meiji villa in Miki with a formal porch and a raised guest chamber, built with fine timber and Kunikane joinery.

The plain maid's quarters of the Ogawa Family Residence, between the main house and storeroom. With a bath and privy, it is a rare late-Meiji record of staff space.

The outer wall enclosing the Ogawa Family Residence, broken on the north by the front gate. It defines the long north-south lot and screens the garden from the street.

The storehouse of the Ogawa Family Residence, a thick-walled dozo near the inner courtyard, built to guard household goods from fire and damp among the courtyard buildings.

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.

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.