Meiji

The Jotokuin Gate in Nagano City is an early Meiji-period yakuimon-style gate serving as the formal entrance to Jotokuin, a Tendai Buddhist sub-temple of Zenkoji. Registered as a Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2006, this wooden gate is one of the rare structures that survived the devastating 1891 fire in the Zenkoji temple district, featuring distinctive architectural details including triple-stepped bracket sets and a gable roof with pan-tile covering.

Discover Shirahige Shrine Haiden, a Nagano City Designated Cultural Property in the legendary village of Kinasa. Explore its elegant Irimoya architecture, ties to Emperor Tenmu's capital relocation plan, and the tale of the demon-slaying warrior Taira no Koremochi.

A single-arch brick bridge of 1900 on the Shinonoi Line in Chikuma, Nagano. Ashlar abutments and over-fired brickwork survive from Japan's state railway era.

A late-Meiji preparation cellar at the Takeshige brewery in Motai, notable for interior posts built up from bolted planks. Listed as hard to recreate.

The 1909 main house of the Takeshige brewery in Motai, with plastered gables and a passage to the cellars behind. Its walled street front is a famed Nakasendo scene.

A 1909 gate of keyaki timber, two metres wide, that splits a Nagano sake brewery's working approach from the private garden of the main house. Registered in 2000.

A mid-Meiji earthen fermentation cellar of 244 square metres behind the No. 1 cellar at a Nagano brewery, with a Western-style testing room and a koji room upstairs.

A white-plastered timber fence of about 1909, nine bays long with a gentle bend, running from the main house along the east water channel of a Nagano brewery estate.

A two-storey earthen storehouse of 1912 with a set-on roof, black-plastered openings and a moulded cornice, facing a Nagano brewer's drawing room across a garden.

A long, narrow late-Meiji grain shed along the west edge of a Nagano sake brewer's estate, its eight doorways closed by twelve stacked drop-boards, a rare survival.

A small two-storey earthen cellar of about 1912, built to match the document storehouse beside it; the rear gate between them divides a brewer's home from work.

Standing in the Kawagishi district of Okaya City, Nagano Prefecture, the Chuo Printing Company Building (Former Katakura Group Office) is a wood-frame two-story Registered Tangible Cultural Property completed in 1910 as the headquarters of the Katakura Group, the largest silk-reeling enterprise in Japan. Built within the grounds of the Kakigai Silk Reeling Factory — Katakura's birthplace — its dignified facade combines artificial stone pier columns with brick walls, while a Western-style first floor pairs with a Japanese hall above. Selected in the very first round of registrations in 1996, it remains an evocative monument of 'SILK OKAYA.'

This three-story wing in Suzaka, Nagano, joins the shop by a covered passage. Its ground-floor reception rooms hold an alcove and writing bay, with bedrooms above.

Built in mid-Meiji Suzaka, Nagano, this two-story kimono shop has a black plastered upper wall, projecting eaves and a lattice window. Registered in 2016.

Discover the Nagano Holy Saviour Church, a registered Tangible Cultural Property built in 1898 by Canadian missionary J.G. Waller. This Gothic-style brick chapel near Zenkoji Temple features pointed arches, rose windows, buttresses, and stained glass—a rare architectural gem in Nagano.

The Japan Crane Association Nagano Branch Museum in Nagano City is a nationally registered tangible cultural property that preserves the former Ikeda Police Station, originally built in 1893 during the Meiji era. Discover this charming two-story Western-style wooden building featuring a hipped-roof entrance porch and exquisite lace-like barge board decorations that showcase the unique beauty of Japan's pseudo-Western architectural tradition.

Discover Nippon Sei Ko Kai Matsumoto Holy Cross Church, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Nagano Prefecture. Built in 1910 by Canadian missionary F.W.C. Kennedy, this Gothic-style wooden church features scissor truss ceilings, pointed arches, and a striking bell tower near Matsumoto Castle.

The Hanaya Hotel Well in Bessho Onsen, Ueda City, is a late Meiji granite kerb of four cut blocks, 90 centimetres square. Registered in 2006, it still draws water.

A tiny thatched watermill hut at Hanaya Hotel in Bessho Onsen, barely a ken and a half square, with chestnut posts that resist damp and a waterwheel on its west wall.

A farmhouse of about 1909 on a slope in the Iriyamabe valley east of Matsumoto, its tall upper floor built as one undivided silkworm room. Registered 1999. Private.