Meiji

Discover the $11 million Yuteki Tenmoku tea bowl at Osaka's Museum of Oriental Ceramics. This 12th-century Song Dynasty masterpiece features mesmerizing oil-spot patterns and stands as Japan's only National Treasure-designated Yuteki Tenmoku. Complete visitor guide included.

Experience one of only three surviving Yohen Tenmoku tea bowls in the world at Osaka's Fujita Museum. This 12th-century National Treasure displays mysterious cosmic patterns that modern science cannot reproduce, valued at 1.7 billion yen.

Discover the Former Konishi Family Residence (Kyu-Konishi-ke Jutaku), an Important Cultural Property in Osaka's Doshomachi district. This 1903 merchant house features traditional machiya architecture, kura storehouses, and offers a rare glimpse into Meiji-era pharmaceutical merchant life. Free guided tours available by reservation.

Completed in 1871 as the reception hall for the Imperial Mint Bureau, Senpukan is the oldest surviving Western-style building in Osaka Prefecture. Designed by Irish engineer Thomas J. Waters in the Veranda Colonial style, this elegant brick structure was named by Emperor Meiji himself, meaning 'Hall of Currency.' Designated as a national Important Cultural Property, it stands as a remarkable symbol of Japan's earliest steps toward modernization.

Built in 1871 as part of the Meiji government's Mint Bureau, this neoclassical stone portico features six Tuscan-order columns of Seiryūzan stone and a triangular pediment, designed by Irish-born British engineer Thomas James Waters. Designated as an Important Cultural Property alongside the adjacent Senpukan, it is one of Japan's oldest surviving Western-style buildings. Today it serves as the entrance to the Former Sakuranomiya Public Hall, a French restaurant and wedding venue in Osaka.

On Osaka's Okawa River stand the remains of Japan's first modern mint, founded in 1871. Senpukan, the old main gate, a guard house and early gas lamps survive here.

Discover the Former Main Hall of Abe Oji Shrine, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property built in 1908 along the historic Kumano Kaido in Osaka's Abeno Ward. Learn about its distinctive nagare-zukuri architecture and the shrine's deep ties to the Kumano pilgrimage and Abe no Seimei.

The kyakuma at Gantokuji in Kadoma, Osaka, is a Meiji-era reserve guest room. Though a secondary space, it was finished with choice timber and registered in 2006.

The taikoro at Gantokuji in Kadoma, Osaka, is a Meiji-era drum tower. A long range on a cut-stone plinth faces the street, and its tower carries cusped katomado windows.

Jigan-ji's bell tower in Yao, Osaka, built in 1900, is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property. This open frame on a cut-stone base hangs its bronze bell from the gable.

Jigan-ji's side gate and earthen wall in Yao, Osaka, date to early Meiji. A one-bay gate and a 12-metre tiled wall run north to the main gate, edging a temple town.

Built in 1874, this is the oldest registered building at Chihaya Shrine, Osaka, and served as its main hall until 1928. Chrysanthemum and wave carvings.

Built in late Meiji, the Fujii rice store carries a mokko crest motif on its sliding earthen door and round windows cut through both gable walls, at the plot's rear.

The barn of the Mezan Atsushi Residence, the oldest of its eight registered structures, built in 1905, its plastered walls and bracketed eaves facing the entrance path.

The storehouse of the Yoshida brewery in Ikeda, Osaka, maker of Midori-ichi sake: a three-story plaster kura of about 1878, crowned by a Shōki roof figure.

The main building of Yoshida Sake Brewery, from about 1878, is a grand merchant townhouse in the old Osaka sake town of Ikeda, with black plaster and fire walls.

A registered cultural property in Ikeda, Osaka: an 8.8-meter black-plastered wall from around 1878, fronting a sake brewery founded in 1697 on the old Nose Kaidō.

Discover Locomotive No. 233 in Kyoto: Japan's oldest surviving domestically mass-produced steam locomotive, built in 1903–1904 and designated an Important Cultural Property in 2016. A milestone of Meiji-era industrial heritage at Kyoto Railway Museum.

The National Treasure celadon vase 'Bansei', fired at Southern Song China's Longquan kilns, passed from an empress to a Kyoto temple before reaching Izumi, Osaka.

Osaka's Kyou Shooku library holds eleven Song-printed volumes of the Shiji jijie, the oldest Shiji commentary, a National Treasure once owned by Naito Konan.