Shōwa

The great torii of Kyoto's Heian Jingu, raised in 1928 in reinforced concrete, stands about 24 meters tall. Once Japan's largest, it anchors the Okazaki district.

On the west of Heian Jingu's south court stands the 1940 Gakuden, a rest-and-assembly hall modeled on an ancient palace hall, with board doors and lattice shutters.

On the east of Heian Jingu's south court, the 1940 Kaguraden sits on a stone platform, open on three sides, hosting sacred dance and Shinto weddings.

Outside Heian Jingu's east corridor, the 1940 Saikan is a refined modern Japanese hall with a karahafu gabled entrance and finely coffered ceilings.

Extending east and west from Heian Jingu's main gate, the 1940 Shinmon Yokuro adds tatami rooms and vermilion woodwork under tiled roofs, shaping the shrine's front.

Behind Heian Jingu's sanctuary, a see-through fence and small rear gate close off the rear precinct. Built in 1940 by Sunami Takashi and Tani Shigeo, it runs 90 meters.

Beside its eastern twin, Heian Jingu's West Saikiko is a 1940 two-story plaster storehouse for ritual vessels, with namako-style joints at its base and plastered eaves.

Behind Heian Jingu's sanctuary, the 1940 West Shinko is a small log-built sacred storehouse, strictly symmetrical with its eastern twin. A fine miniature azekura hut.

On the west of Heian Jingu's south court, the West Gate, or Shozenmon, and its L-shaped corridor enclose the court. Built in 1940, it mirrors the east side.

Behind Heian Jingu's sanctuary, the 1940 East Shinko is a small log storehouse about 3.6 meters square, its bare white wood standing out amid the vermilion precinct.

On the east of Heian Jingu's south court, the East Gate, or Senseimon, and its 50-meter corridor enclose the court, their vermilion frame and green lattice defining it.

Heian Jingu's South Walkway is a 1940 L-shaped passage tying the Soryuro and Byakkoro towers to the outer corridors, two bays wide with a latticed central wall.

Built in 1942 so the Konoe archive could be examined properly: a 393 m2 sukiya villa with the tea room Tekian, and the one Yomei Bunko building visitors enter.

The plainest of Yomei Bunko's four registered buildings, and the one that works: a 159 m2 wooden office with entrance lattice and a fireplace chimney.

Konoe Fumimaro raised this 73 m2 vault in 1938, before founding the archive itself: reinforced concrete disguised as a merchant's storehouse, lifted off the damp ground.

Two years after the First Repository, wartime shortages forced this 1940 vault to give up its raised floor. Its upper storey is where the treasures are shown.

Standing along Kyoto's celebrated Philosopher's Path near Ginkaku-ji, Restaurant Noa Noa occupies the former Western-style annex of the residence of Hashimoto Kansetsu (1883–1945), one of the leading Japanese-style painters of the Taisho and early Showa eras. Designed by Kansetsu himself and built around 1929 within his sprawling Hakusasonso estate, the modest two-storey reinforced-concrete building was conceived as a place to display his collection of Western antiquities. Its Spanish-style façade — graced with subtly Japanese rafter-shaped detailing on the entrance eaves — embodies a distinctive current of early-Showa residential design, and the property was registered as a Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2005. Now serving European cuisine in the painter's original interiors and a leafy garden setting, Noa Noa offers visitors a uniquely atmospheric way to encounter a registered cultural property in the heart of eastern Kyoto.

The Kamowakeikazuchi Shrine Documents, designated as an Important Cultural Property, comprise 13,639 historical records spanning from the late Heian period to the Edo era. Preserved at Kamigamo Shrine in Kyoto, this extraordinary archive includes decrees from Minamoto no Yoritomo, edicts from Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and approximately 1,400 consecutive monthly financial records—offering an unparalleled window into the history of one of Japan's most revered Shinto shrines.