Shōwa

Soan, the freestanding tea house of Kyutei Omuro near Narabigaoka in Kyoto. This four-and-a-half-mat room opens its north wall to frame the town and the hills.

The storehouse of Kyutei Omuro stands at the northwest corner of this 1937 Kyoto villa, a plastered kura registered for how it shapes the historic scene.

West of the tea house in Kyutei Omuro's garden stands the machiai, a waiting arbor of just 4.8 m², packed with design from copper roof to round window.

A tiled wall traces the edges of Kyutei Omuro, a gabled gate set into it. The adzed door and boat-shaped brackets carry the villa's refinement to its boundary.

A 1935 Kyoto merchant house registered in 2021. It keeps the omoya-zukuri plan but gives the shopfront a Western face, with an earth floor and a corridor behind.

Registered in 2021, this 28-square-metre building of 1935 stands at the back of a Kyoto dyer's plot, with a goods store below and a staff rest room above.

Discover Kyu Fujinomori-yu, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Kyoto. Built in 1930, this former public bathhouse features a karahafu entrance, Majolica tiles, and coffered ceilings. Now reborn as Cafe Sarasa Nishijin, it offers a unique blend of Showa-era heritage and modern cafe culture.

Discover the Kyoto Art Center North Building, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property originally built in 1931 as part of Meirin Elementary School. Explore its Spanish-style reinforced concrete architecture, unique slope design, and vibrant art scene in the heart of Kyoto's Gion Festival district.

Completed in 1927, the Kyoto City Hall Main Building is an architectural gem that blends a Neo-Baroque framework with decorative motifs from Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and Islamic traditions. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2025, discover the history, design, and visitor highlights of this remarkable civic landmark.

The Kintetsu Yodogawa Bridge in Fushimi, Kyoto is a 164.6-metre pierless steel truss built in 1928 to clear an army drill ground. Still Japan's longest simple-truss railway span, it is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property and a JSCE A-rank civil engineering heritage.

Turning south from Kōshō-ji's main gate, this early-Taishō earthen wall runs about 45m along Horikawa-dōri, the longest in the precinct. It was registered in 2025.

Discover the Kotobuki Building (壽ビルディング), a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Kyoto's Shijo Kawaramachi area. Built in 1927, this five-story reinforced concrete gem blends Art Deco elegance with early Showa-era design—now home to stylish boutiques, galleries, and a beloved children's bookshop.

This abbot's quarters is a spacious six-room shoin hall rebuilt in 1936 after the 1934 fire, with screens by Kubota Kinsen, on former Aizu headquarters ground.

Fronting the abbot's quarters, this four-legged gate covers barely seven square metres yet concentrates early-Showa Kyoto carving in its copper gable and transoms.

East of the abbot's quarters, this 1936 hall carries a copper-gabled car porch. Inside, a Western board-floored reception room sits beside a shoin tatami room.

Turning at a right angle from the karamon gate, this 57-metre earthen wall frames the abbot's south garden. Its five horizontal lines mark the highest temple rank.

Kurodani's main hall enshrines a portrait of Honen at seventy-five. Rebuilt after a 1934 fire by Kyoto University's Amanuma Shunichi in revived Kamakura style.

Kyoto's 1932 alumni hall for the Prefectural Normal School — Spanish-tile parapets, arched windows, and Art Deco round windows survive intact in northern Kyoto.

Discover Taigaku Bunko, a 1928 reinforced-concrete archive building designed by renowned architect Goichi Takeda. Located within the former retreat of Meiji Restoration hero Iwakura Tomomi in northern Kyoto, this Registered Tangible Cultural Property houses precious historical artifacts from Japan's transformative era.

Discover the Zangetsu-tei tea room at Daishoji Temple, a registered tangible cultural property built in 1938 within one of Kyoto's most prestigious imperial convent temples near the Kyoto Imperial Palace.