Meiji
明治Browse Japan’s cultural heritage from the Meiji period (1868 – 1912). Filter by prefecture, type, and keyword, with concise stories, maps, and travel tips.
Built in 1901 to Chujo Seiichiro's design, this former Sapporo college classroom sets a pilastered, pedimented front against plain hipped wings.
Built in 1902 to Chujo Seiichiro's design, this compact two-story brick library stack rewards a close look at its clinker base and stepped gable coping.
Built in 1902 by Chujo Seiichiro, this T-shaped timber reading hall wears two rooftop lanterns and windows crowned by alternating triangular and segmental pediments.
Inside the Hokkaido University Botanic Garden stands the former home of John Batchelor, the Ainu-studies missionary: a trim clapboard house of 1898, moved here in 1905.
The office of Hokkaido University's Botanic Garden is the east wing of the old zoology-botany hall of 1901, moved here in 1942, its entrance crowned by a pediment.
Furukawa Memorial Hall of 1909 was the forestry classroom of Tohoku Imperial University's agriculture college: a Renaissance timber hall with a mansard roof and turret.
Built in 1898, Japan's only surviving Japanese-style prefectural assembly hall hides a Western truss above its plaster-walled chamber. Restored at Negoro, Iwade.
The guest wing of the Izumi family house in Hirogawa, Wakayama, built in 1904 by the eighth head of the family, has high-ceilinged rooms finished with delicate care.
Ichiki Ryokan Old Building is a late Meiji two-storey guest wing moved to this Kainan inn in 1937, with a four-room banquet suite and showy sukiya timberwork.
At the western edge of the Ueda estate in Hashimoto, Wakayama, this late-Meiji detached parlour holds three eight-mat guest rooms, raised on walls of Kishu blue stone.
An early Meiji sake brewing warehouse behind the Oe main house in Minabe, Wakayama. Nine bays by five, earthen walls, and the town's last brewery. Registered 2014.
The main house of the Oka family in Kudoyama, Wakayama, built in 1871, is a farmhouse with an attic storey, a formal entrance and a ridge vent tied to family luck.
The Heya Annex of the Oka family home in Kudoyama, Wakayama, is a late Meiji guest wing of two 8-mat rooms with verandas and a finely made alcove display.
The gatehouse of the Oka family in Kudoyama, Wakayama, built in 1871 with the main house, is a long nagaya-mon holding a barn, a servants' room and a cattle stall.
The barn of the Okazaki Family Residence in Takata, Shingu, a late Meiji building, keeps a cowshed and lofts inside and a workspace under deep eaves on the east.
The Odai Irrigation Canal Koniwadani River Aqueduct is a 1909 brick arch carrying the canal over a stream in Katsuragi, Wakayama, among its earliest rebuilt parts.
The Odai Irrigation Canal Nakatani River Water Gate is a 1912 brick siphon taking the canal under the Nakatani River in Katsuragi, Wakayama, registered in 2006.
The Former Katsuragikan Inn by Koyaguchi Station in Hashimoto, Wakayama, is a late Meiji timber inn of three full storeys with copper pent roofs at every floor.
The former Kanda family villa, Tosontei, in Kushimoto, Wakayama, is a merchant villa of 1874 finished in cedar said to come from a huge tree washed up on the shore.
A mid-Meiji tsushi two-story house on the old Koya Kaido in Hashimoto, Wakayama, its black plaster walls sealed over the rafters and framed by two curved pilasters.