Muromachi

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 Kanshinji Temple's Golden Hall, Osaka's oldest National Treasure building featuring the unique "Kanshinji style" architecture. This 14th-century masterpiece harmoniously blends Japanese, Chinese Zen, and Indian Buddhist elements. Home to the secret Nyoirin Kannon statue and connected to samurai hero Kusunoki Masashige.

The Main Hall of Katano Tenjinja in Hirakata City, Osaka, is a cypress bark-roofed shrine building from 1402 — the oldest surviving structure in the city and a designated Important Cultural Property of Japan. Founded in 787 when Emperor Kanmu established a sacred altar honoring his father Emperor Kōnin, the shrine preserves exquisite Kamakura-period carvings and stands near the traditional site of Emperor Keitai's 6th-century Kuzuha Palace.

At Katano Tenjinsha in Hirakata, Osaka, the Hachiman auxiliary shrine's main hall is a small Muromachi one-bay nagare-zukuri, an Important Cultural Property of 1917.

The Kariteimo-do at Kanshinji Temple in Kawachinagano, Osaka, is a compact shrine hall rebuilt in 1549 and designated as an Important Cultural Property of Japan. Dedicated to Kariteimo (Hariti), the Buddhist guardian of children, this late Muromachi-period structure features elegant ikkensha kasuga-zukuri architecture with a cypress bark roof and cusped gable.

A ‘pagoda’ one story tall: Kanshin-ji’s Tatekake-tō, begun on Kusunoki Masashige’s vow and halted by his death at war in 1336, stands thatched and unfinished.

The Romon of Kyuan-ji in Ikeda, Osaka, is an early-15th-century temple gate and the oldest building on the grounds, mixing native wayo with Zen-style carving.

The Three-Tiered Hōkyōintō at Kinzenji Temple in Toyonaka City, Osaka, is an Important Cultural Property of Japan dating to 1349 during the Nanbokuchō period. Featuring an exceptionally rare triple-canopy structure carved in granite with Buddhist figures and Sanskrit seed syllables, this stone pagoda stands in a tranquil Ōbaku Zen temple originally founded by the monk Gyōki and later revived by the celebrated Tetsugen Dōkō.

The main hall of Kusabe Shrine in Sakai City, Osaka, is a nationally designated Important Cultural Property dating from the Nanbokucho period (circa 1369). Notable for its unusual dual roof style — gable front and hip-and-gable rear — and richly carved kaerumata struts depicting bulls, Chinese lions, go players, and mandarin ducks, the hall preserves the artistry of medieval Izumi craftsmen. As an ancient shrine listed in the Engishiki with connections to Emperor Jimmu's legendary eastern campaign and the beloved Urashima Tarō folktale, Kusabe Shrine offers visitors over a thousand years of layered Japanese heritage.

Three main halls stand in a row at Kumata Jinja in Osaka. The Third Hall, built in 1513 in single-bay Kasuga style, ranks among the city's oldest wooden buildings.

At Kumata Shrine in Osaka's Hirano district, the central Second Hall is a three-bay nagare-zukuri building of 1513, among the city's oldest, dated by its ridge tags.

The Tahoto pagoda of Daitokuji Temple on Mt. Ushitaki in Kishiwada City, Osaka, is a nationally designated Important Cultural Property built in 1515 during the late Muromachi period. Notable for its rare placement behind the main hall, this striking vermilion tower preserves refined medieval craftsmanship and creates an iconic autumn scene surrounded by spectacular foliage. Discover this treasure of mountain Buddhism at a sacred Shugendo training site along the Japan Heritage–certified Katsuragi Shugendo pilgrimage route.

Kongo-ji's National Treasure screens set a gold sun over spring hills and a silver moon over snowy pines. Explore this Muromachi masterpiece and its rare openings.

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.

Printed in Southern Song China in 1139, these 17 National Treasure volumes of the Maoshi zhengyi rest at Kyo-U Library in Osaka with Kanazawa Bunko seals.

The Tobiseiji Hanaike at the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, is a National Treasure regarded as the finest surviving example of Chinese Yuan-dynasty Longquan celadon with iron-spot decoration. Standing 27.3 cm tall in the elegant yuhuchun form, twenty-one iron spots dance across its jade-green glaze. Discover this masterpiece treasured in Japan for centuries through the Konoike merchants and the famed Ataka Collection.

Held by the Fujita Museum in Osaka, the National Treasure Saimon Shingetsu-zu (Brushwood Gate and the New Moon) is the oldest surviving Japanese poem-painting scroll with a confirmed date, inscribed Ōei 12 (1405). Inspired by a couplet of the Tang poet Du Fu, it carries a preface by the Zen monk Gyokuen Bonpō and poems by eighteen monks of Nanzen-ji and other Five Mountains temples. This guide explores the work itself, its place at the origin of Muromachi ink painting, what to look for in the scroll, and how to plan a visit to the Fujita Museum.

A herdboy rides his ox home through falling snow in Li Di's Returning Herd in Snow, a Southern Song National Treasure kept at Nara's Yamato Bunkakan museum.