Shōwa

A small tea house on Kaga Shotaro's Oyamazaki estate, its table-style tea seat doubling as a Buddhist chapel, opened only for seasonal tea gatherings.

A tiny teahouse on Kaga Shotaro's estate, a log-framed room projecting over a stone base set into the slope, a deft blend of West and Japan. Not normally open.

By the worship hall stands Amino Shrine's offering hall, an early-Showa building where offerings for the deities are prepared, plain but carefully made.

Wrapping around the main hall of Amino Shrine, this thirty-metre early-Showa openwork fence is solid below and latticed above, ringing the sacred inner ground.

Beside the approach to Amino Shrine stands its ablution pavilion, built in 1943 to mark the shrine's promotion to prefectural rank, open on all sides under a copper roof.

A short covered corridor linking the worship hall to the main hall of Amino Shrine, built around 1929. Its thin brackets and curved rafters show a delicate touch.

Spanning the Yura River in Ayabe, Kyoto, the Ayabe Ohashi Bridge is a 210-metre seven-span steel curved-chord Warren truss bridge completed in 1929. Designated a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2005, it remains in active service as a road bridge and stands as a rare and beautiful example of early-Showa civil engineering.

Rising from the wooded foothills of Ayabe in northern Kyoto, Oomoto Mirokuden is a vast 789-tatami sanctuary completed in 1953 on the site of an earlier hall lost to wartime suppression. A registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan since 2014, its pillar-less interior, layered copper-shingled irimoya roof, and surrounding gardens make it one of the great twentieth-century religious buildings of Japan.

Kaga Shōtarō's Tudor half-timber former garage beneath Mount Tennōzan, registered as a Cultural Property and now operated as a free rest house by Kyoto Prefecture on the wooded grounds of Ōyamazaki Sansō.

Discover the Ogawa-ke Kitashirakawa Bettei Omotemon, a nationally registered tangible cultural property in Kyoto. Designed by renowned architect Fujii Koji with gardens by the legendary 7th-generation Ogawa Jihei (Ueji), this elegant early Showa-era gate embodies the finest of modern Japanese residential architecture.

Discover Kawashima Clinic, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Kyoto's Nakagyō Ward. Built in 1936 by Amerikaya, this wooden three-story clinic features a conical tower, half-timbered gable, French roof tiles, and ship-cabin interiors inspired by German castles.

Discover the Kansai Franco-Japanese Institute (Kansai Nichifutsu Gakkan), a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Kyoto designed by a disciple of Auguste Perret. Explore this elegant 1936 reinforced-concrete landmark where French culture meets Japanese tradition.

Completed in 1934 in the light sukiya taste, this single-story parlor is a quieter counterpart to the Kataoka family's formal shoin guest hall of the Taisho years.

The main house of Kyutei Omuro, a 1937 sukiya villa on Narabigaoka's slope in Kyoto. A Mount Fuji transom crowns rooms whose karin table mirrors the garden.

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.

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.