Shōwa

Okayama · 昭和

Browse Okayama’s cultural heritage from the Shōwa period (1926 – 1989). Filter by type and keyword, with concise stories, maps, and travel tips.

88 total Okayama Shōwa Period 1926 – 1989
Showing 61 – 80 of 88
Nagashima Aiseien Former Camp
Okayama 昭和前
Nagashima Aiseien Former Camp

On Nagashima's north shore, the 1930 reception building was where new arrivals first entered, examined and disinfected, before a week's confinement. Registered 2019.

Nagashima Aiseien Former Laundry House
Okayama 昭和前
Nagashima Aiseien Former Laundry House

Beside the bathhouse at Nagashima Aiseien stands the 1930 laundry, where residents washed bedding and clothing as assigned work. Built in concrete. Registered 2019.

Nagashima Aiseien Former Hinode Bathhouse
Okayama 昭和前
Nagashima Aiseien Former Hinode Bathhouse

The 1930 Hide Bathhouse at Nagashima Aiseien still has ceiling steam vents, a skylight and, rare for prewar Japan, hot-water showers. Registered in 2019.

Notre Dame Seishin University Notre Dame Hall East Building
Okayama 昭和前
Notre Dame Seishin University Notre Dame Hall East Building

Notre Dame Hall East Building in Okayama, a 1929 Antonin Raymond design built as a convent, holds the university chapel behind a grid of colored glass windows.

Notre Dame Seishin University Notre Dame Hall Main Building
Okayama 昭和前
Notre Dame Seishin University Notre Dame Hall Main Building

Notre Dame Hall Main Building in Okayama is a 1929 Antonin Raymond school with unbroken eaves, original pivot windows and wartime paint traces, registered 2007.

Hayashibara Museum of Art Main Building
Okayama 昭和中
Hayashibara Museum of Art Main Building

The Hayashibara Museum of Art Main Building (1963) was Maekawa Kunio's first museum, with galleries looping a bamboo courtyard and walls of over-fired brick.

Handayama Extension Meter House
Okayama 昭和前
Handayama Extension Meter House

Hexagonal meter house of 1939 on Mount Handa, Okayama, its concrete walls tiled to look like header-bond brick in a simpler copy of the 1905 meter house.

Bitchuya Koso Sake Brewery Well and Washing Area
Okayama 昭和前
Bitchuya Koso Sake Brewery Well and Washing Area

An early Showa brewing well and washing floor at a sake brewery in Ushimado, Okayama: a 1.2 m stone-lined well and a 4 by 2.2 m mortar floor. Registered 2007.

Bitchuya Koso Sake Brewery Chimney
Okayama 昭和前
Bitchuya Koso Sake Brewery Chimney

A red-brick chimney of about 1932 at a sake brewery in Ushimado, Okayama: 15 m tall, English bond with iron bands, lettered Senju. Nicknamed the red chimney.

Heisakubara Power Station Endo River Intake Weir
Okayama 昭和前
Heisakubara Power Station Endo River Intake Weir

Built in 1928 on the Endo River in Kagamino, Okayama, this 18-metre concrete gravity weir feeds Heisakubara Power Station. Note its curved crest and parallel gates.

Heisakubara Power Station Endo River Settling Basin
Okayama 昭和前
Heisakubara Power Station Endo River Settling Basin

This 51-metre concrete settling basin, built in 1928 beside the Endo River weir in Kagamino, Okayama, strips silt from water bound for Heisakubara Power Station.

Heisakubara Power Station Endobara River Intake Weir
Okayama 昭和前
Heisakubara Power Station Endobara River Intake Weir

Built in 1928 in Kagamino, Okayama, this 8.2-metre overflow weir on the Endobara River has a 7.5-metre apron cast in one piece to keep falling water from scouring.

Heisakubara Power Station Endobara River Settling Basin
Okayama 昭和前
Heisakubara Power Station Endobara River Settling Basin

A slender 55-metre concrete settling basin from 1928 in Kagamino, Okayama, fitted with a mid-wall sediment sluice and stone walls against debris from the slope.

Heisakubara Power Station Onbara Reservoir Dam
Okayama 昭和前
Heisakubara Power Station Onbara Reservoir Dam

Onbara Dam in Kagamino, Okayama, a 94-metre buttress dam of 1928, is the oldest surviving one built for power in Japan and the first to use Mononobe's quake theory.

Heisakubara Power Station Onbara Reservoir Dam Spillway
Okayama 昭和前
Heisakubara Power Station Onbara Reservoir Dam Spillway

This 132-metre concrete spillway, built in 1928 on the right bank of Onbara Dam in Kagamino, Okayama, bends twice to slow surplus water before it reaches the river.

Heisakubara Power Station Main Waterway Settling Basin
Okayama 昭和前
Heisakubara Power Station Main Waterway Settling Basin

Built in 1928 about 270 metres below Onbara Dam in Kagamino, Okayama, this small concrete settling basin is roofed with slabs on its hillside edges against debris.

Heisakubara Power Station Head Tank
Okayama 昭和前
Heisakubara Power Station Head Tank

Built in 1928 in Kagamino, Okayama, this concrete head tank takes water from a 2.3-kilometre channel, flushes out grit and feeds the plant's penstock.

Heisakubara Power Station Penstock and Main Building Retaining Walls
Okayama 昭和前
Heisakubara Power Station Penstock and Main Building Retaining Walls

Two granite walls laid in the diagonal tanizumi style in 1928, 68 metres in all, hold up the penstock route and main building of Heisakubara Power Station.

Heisakubara Power Station Main Building
Okayama 昭和前
Heisakubara Power Station Main Building

Heisakubara's 1928 concrete powerhouse in Kagamino, Okayama, joins a gabled generator hall to a flat-roofed wing with tall windows, and it still generates power.

Marumoto Sake Brewery Kettle Room
Okayama 昭和前
Marumoto Sake Brewery Kettle Room

Marumoto Sake Brewery Kettle Room, Okayama: a rice-steaming house of about 1932, 104 square metres on a trapezoid plan, with a monitor roof to let the steam escape.