Meiji

Standing before Imamiya Shrine's Honden, the 1902 Heiden, worship area and corridors shape the space worshippers face, with a cusped gable and cloud carving.

The Honden of Imamiya Shrine in Kyoto's Murasakino was rebuilt in 1902 after a fire, standing beside the older Ekijinja hall, now a Registered Cultural Property.

This 65-metre earthen wall wraps Imamiya Shrine's Honden and Ekijinja. A gate is set in its north face, and five plaster lines mark the highest rank.

The worship hall and middle hall of Ura Shrine, the cult site of the Urashima legend in Ine, Kyoto. Built in 1884 in the warihaiden split-hall form, its facade is anchored by a cloud-and-dragon panel carved by a master of the Nakai Gonji lineage of Tanba woodcarvers. Registered as a Tangible Cultural Property in 2014.

Discover Ura Shrine's Main Hall in Ine, Kyoto — a Meiji-era thatched Shinmei-style sanctuary registered as an Important Cultural Property, standing at the legendary home of Urashima Tarō, Japan's oldest folktale.

Tucked away in central Kyoto's Shimogyo Ward, Uronza is a beautifully preserved kyo-machiya townhouse built in 1897 by the Nagaoka family of master carpenters from Fukui Prefecture as their own residence. With its first-floor degoshi lattice, second-floor mushiko-mado window, and sukiya-style parlor, it stands as a fine example of the modern Kyoto machiya. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2008 and given two additional city-level designations, Uronza now operates as a small guesthouse, offering the rare experience of staying overnight in a 120-year-old officially protected building.

Discover the Ogawa Bunsai House Noborigama, a rare Meiji-period climbing kiln preserved on Kyoto's Gojozaka, the birthplace of Kiyomizu-yaki pottery. Learn about its history, cultural significance, and the six-generation Bunsai pottery lineage.

Nestled in Kyoto's Okazaki cultural district, the Kansai Art Institute is Japan's oldest surviving private Western painting school, founded by painter Asai Chu in 1906 and designed by architect Takeda Goichi. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property, this Meiji-era wooden atelier continues to serve its original purpose, offering artists the same soft north-facing natural light that once nurtured masters like Yasui Sotaro and Umehara Ryuzaburo.

An 1876 timber lookout in Kyoto's Higashiyama Ward, built to signal fires by bell and the hour by drum. The last surviving tower of the city's bangumi schools.

A brick pump house of 1912 beside the Lake Biwa Canal in Yamashina, built to raise firefighting water for the Kyoto Imperial Palace. Designated in 2025.

An early Meiji thatched farmhouse in Miyama, Kyoto, registered in 2008. A wide earth-floored doma fills the south half, and the west zashiki holds a formal alcove.

Built in 1893 and registered in 2008, this small earthen storehouse in Miyama, Kyoto, carries an okiyane roof set free of its thick lime-plastered walls.

Discover the garden gate and fence of the Former Koyama Residence (Tamuraya Hotaru-an), a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Miyama, Kyoto. Explore the elegant Meiji-era architecture of a former village headman's estate nestled in the scenic thatched-roof countryside.

An early Meiji machiya on Takatsuji-dori in Kyoto, once a dye merchant's house. Two winding staircases by Tango carpenters survive inside. Registered in 2014.

The smallest of three registered buildings at Namikawa Yasuyuki's Kyoto residence, this 18 square metre kiln house kept its shuttered windows and plastered ceiling.

The single-storey workshop where Namikawa Yasuyuki's wired cloisonne was made around 1902, its two small rooms lined with shelving and now open as a museum gallery.

Built in 1893 by enameller Namikawa Yasuyuki, this Kyoto townhouse pairs a classic machiya front with tall lintels and glazed verandas made for foreign buyers.

The Former Maizuru Naval District Type-B Official Residence in Maizuru City, Kyoto Prefecture, is a traditional Japanese-style wooden house built in 1902 to the Imperial Navy's standardized specifications for senior officers. This single-story hipped-roof building features a distinctive layout separating formal reception rooms from private living quarters. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property, it offers a rare glimpse into the domestic life of naval officers at Japan's only Sea of Japan coast naval district.

Standing on the Yoshida Campus of Kyoto University, Sonno-do is a registered tangible cultural property built in 1903. This single-story brick hall traces its origins to a memorial founded by Shinagawa Yajirō, a devoted student of Yoshida Shōin, to honor loyalist warriors of the Meiji Restoration. Featuring stucco-finished walls and an iron entrance porch in a blend of Japanese and Western styles, it now serves as an archive room for archaeological artifacts from the university campus.

Standing along Sakaimachi-dori in Kyoto's Nakagyo Ward, the Main House of the Horino Memorial Museum is a grand mid-Meiji machiya on the birthplace of the Kinshi Masamune sake brewery, founded in 1781. Registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property, it features kiriko lattice screens, mushiko windows, black lacquer plaster walls, and a distinctive interior with a sukiya-style parlor on the ground floor and a formal shoin parlor upstairs.