Shōwa

Completed in 1932, the Kobe University Main Building (formerly Kobe University of Commerce Main Building) is a Romanesque-inspired reinforced concrete structure designed by the Ministry of Education Architecture Division. Featuring scratch-tile cladding and Lombardy band ornamentation, it was registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2003 and remains in active use as the home of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.

Opened in 1963, Kobe Port Tower is the world's first observation tower built with a steel-pipe frame structure. Its graceful hyperboloid form, inspired by the traditional Japanese tsuzumi drum, earned registration as a tangible cultural property in 2014. Following a major 2024 renovation featuring a rooftop deck and rotating café, the tower continues to shine as the iconic symbol of port city Kobe.

Kobayashiya Ryokan is a historic wooden three-story inn along the Ōtani River in Kinosaki Onsen, Toyooka City, Hyōgo Prefecture. Rebuilt in the early Shōwa era and designated a nationally Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2015, it preserves the traditional ryokan layout that supported Kinosaki's communal bathhouse culture. A major 2023 renovation fused its heritage architecture with contemporary design.

Standing along the Otani River in the heart of Kinosaki Onsen, Hyogo Prefecture, Shin Kameya Honkan is a three-story wooden ryokan designed by sukiya master architect Hirata Masaya — the first building he created in this historic hot spring town. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2015 for its elegant chidori-hafu gables, fine lattice windows, and refined tokonoma details, the inn offers guests a rare chance to stay in a living piece of Japanese architectural heritage while enjoying the town's famous seven public bathhouses.

Completed in 1930, the Shinko Trade Building is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property standing in Kobe's historic Shinko waterfront district. With its scratch-tile facade, ship-prow corner curve, and geometric Art Deco stained glass, this early Showa office building remains one of Kobe's finest examples of interwar commercial architecture — still in active use as a tenant building for maritime businesses.

Located in Nada Ward, Kobe, the Somatani Sabō Dam was completed in 1956 as a gravity concrete erosion-control structure on Mt. Rokko. Featuring an innovative central slit in its spillway, it was registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2014. The dam stands along a popular hiking route to Mt. Maya and tells the story of erosion-control engineering after the devastating 1938 Hanshin flood.

At the property's western edge stands this sukiya-style gate: round-log posts, three-tier framed doors and a cedar-bark roof over wooden shingles, worked with care.

This small plastered storehouse east of the Japanese wing has a honshogawara tile roof and upper eaves sealed in white lime, a quiet record of a Hanshin garden suburb.

Completed in 1928 in Takarazuka's Hanayashiki garden suburb, this registered house pairs a varied hipped-and-gabled silhouette with Art Deco and Secession interiors.

Added to the Western house in 1954, this Japanese wing has an eight-mat room with a polished-log alcove post and a corridor under an arched boat-bottom ceiling.

Discover the former Matsumoto Residence in Takarazuka, Hyogo — a beautifully preserved 1937 Western-style house designed by University of California-trained architect Kawasaki Shinobu, now a nationally registered tangible cultural property.

The purification pavilion of Nishinomiya Jinja stands on the approach, columns rising from stone pedestals under a copper roof. Built in 1934, it predates the war.

The west wing hall of Nishinomiya Jinja mirrors its eastern twin beside the main hall. A small one-bay building of 1961, it completes a symmetrical sanctuary.

The worship hall of Nishinomiya Jinja is a reinforced-concrete building before the main sanctuary. Built in 1961, its wings enclose the ritual courtyard.

The east wing hall of Nishinomiya Jinja is a small one-bay ritual building facing the courtyard. Newly built in 1961 as one of a matched pair, it was registered in 2025.

The main hall of Nishinomiya Jinja, Japan's head shrine of Ebisu, is the country's only triple Kasuga-zukuri sanctuary, rebuilt in 1961 after wartime loss.

Beside the entrance of Nishimuraya Honkan stands the Ohiroma-to, rebuilt after the 1925 quake. Its eighty-mat hall spans a Western truss under a coffered ceiling.

The Hirata Wing at Nishimuraya Honkan was designed in 1960 by Hirata Masaya, a sukiya master. Its rooms share a single garden through sightlines that never cross.

At the south front of Nishimuraya Honkan stand a large yakuimon gate and an early-Showa wall. Local basalt, the stone that named nearby Genbudo, lines the wall's base.

Discover the main hall of Honjuji Temple, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in the heart of Kinosaki Onsen, Hyogo Prefecture. Rebuilt in 1931 after the devastating 1925 Kita-Tajima Earthquake, this Nichiren Buddhist temple features exquisite coffered ceilings and dragon carvings by the renowned Matsumoto school of Banshu Shikama.