Taishō

The Ueda Sanshu Cooperative Office Building in Nagano is a registered Tangible Cultural Property completed in 1917. This elegant timber-framed office, with its symmetrical facade and pediment windows, stands as a proud symbol of Uedas golden age as Japans foremost silkworm-egg producing city.

In Matsumoto's Hofukuji post town the Ozawa family kept the honjin inn. Their gable-fronted main house, rebuilt in 1913, rises around a skylit three-storey atrium.

The Former Showa Kogyo Silk Reeling Mill, preserved at Matsumoto Rekishi no Sato in Nagano Prefecture, is a Taisho-era silk factory that operated from around 1925 until 1995. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property, it preserves the complete silk production workflow and original machinery, offering an authentic glimpse into Japan's silk heritage.

Built in 1926 by American missionary Jorgensen as a summer villa in Karuizawa, this two-story wooden residence features a gable roof, stone fireplace, and open clapboard exterior. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2018, it stands as a testament to the missionaries who shaped Karuizawa into Japan's premier highland resort.

A 1923 plaster-walled merchant house on Komoro's old Hokkoku road, now a free exhibition hall keeping its shop counter and trolley rails. A readable piece of the old post town, minutes on foot from the castle ruins at Kaikoen park.

At the Sakai brewery in Chikuma, Nagano, the Taisho-gura looks like a storehouse but was the lodging where the master brewer and his winter workers actually lived.

The Shōrenji Shōtoku Taishi-dō in Matsushiro, Nagano City, is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property rebuilt in 1912 through community donations after a great fire. Its remarkable kotee plaster reliefs of dragons, auspicious beasts, and arabesque motifs showcase masterful traditional plastering techniques, while the hall embodies the deep Jōdo Shinshū devotion to Prince Shōtoku in a castle town steeped in Sanada clan heritage.

An L-shaped Taisho-era rice granary at the Takeshige brewery in Motai, extending the front bin and marking a stage in the brewery's growth. Listed as hard to recreate.

A Taisho-era two-storey earthen-wall building on the west edge of the Takeshige brewery in Motai, once the cooperage where sake barrels were made, now used for storage.

A dozo storehouse at the Takeshige brewery in Motai, added north of the No. 3 Storehouse and dated by an ink inscription on its ridge beam to March 1922.

A Taisho-era brick cistern in English bond at the Takeshige brewery in Motai, divided for household and brewing water and valued as a mark of the brewery's modernisation.

This 1916 timber building at Nagano Meijo in Chikuma shows refined modern Japanese-style craft, with grey plaster and a zelkova alcove above the ground-floor shop.

A Taisho-era plastered storehouse east of the reception at Hanaya Hotel. The ground floor stored goods; the upper floor, beams left exposed, became a guest room.

Built in 1916, the main bathhouse sits west of the reception at Hanaya Hotel. A single-storey timber hall, its raised vent ridge draws off the steam of a busy bath.

A two-storey timber wing of about 1920 at Hanaya Hotel, with guest rooms below and an upper hall whose ceiling combines coffered panels with a flat mirrored expanse.

A Taisho-era timber wing at Hanaya Hotel, extended in 1949. The kitchen sits below, and a coffered banquet hall framed by corridors and alcoves sits above.

A 1918 detached wing by the bathhouse at Hanaya Hotel. Two guest rooms sit side by side, each an eight-mat room with an anteroom and a private bath, open to the garden.

A timber wing of about 1920 at Hanaya Hotel. Its two guest rooms take the linked-room shoin form, with wide verandas and private baths, notable for quality and scale.

The 1918 main building at Hanaya Hotel, near the centre of the grounds. Both floors hold eight-mat guest rooms with anterooms and wide verandas, built with fine joinery.

Fujiya Ryokan, located on the Zenkoji Temple approach in Nagano City, is a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property originally established as an official feudal lord's inn during the Edo period and rebuilt in 1925 as a striking blend of Art Deco exterior and traditional sukiya-style interior. This iconic landmark now operates as THE FUJIYA GOHONJIN restaurant and wedding venue.