Meiji

The Mizuya at Menuma Shoden is a one-bay purification pavilion inside the Niomon, only 3.4 square meters yet richly carved with bracketed eaves and thick beams.

The Jumangoku Fukusaya Gyoda Main Store in Gyoda City, Saitama Prefecture, is a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property — a two-story earthen storehouse originally built in 1883 as a kimono merchant's shop. Featuring plastered walls and ornamental ridge tiles, it contributes to Gyoda's historic streetscape and is part of the Japan Heritage "Tabi-Gura Town" story. Today it serves as the flagship shop for the beloved Jumangoku Manju confections.

Discover Terasaka Bridge in Honjo City, Saitama — a Registered Tangible Cultural Property and JSCE Heritage of Civil Engineering built in 1889. This rare Meiji-era stone arch bridge is the oldest of its kind in Saitama Prefecture.

The Tochiya Yasaka Shrine Stage, located in Chichibu City, Saitama Prefecture, is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan built in 1899. This rare surviving rural kabuki stage features a movable two-level stage mechanism and represents the rich tradition of community theater that once flourished across rural Japan. Located near the first temple of the famous Chichibu 34 Kannon Pilgrimage, it offers visitors an authentic glimpse into the folk performing arts culture of the Chichibu mountains.

On the western bank of the Nakagawa River in Yashio, Saitama, the main hall of Hachijō Hachiman Shrine — rebuilt in 1891 and registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2022 — is a single-bay nagare-zukuri sanctuary covered head-to-toe in elaborate woodcarving. Most remarkably, its side panels depict the 1889 promulgation of the Constitution of the Empire of Japan, the Imperial Diet, and the Privy Council, an extraordinarily rare example of contemporary statecraft carved into a Shinto shrine.

An 1887 seaside guest house at Futami near Ise, built in two months for an empress. A 120-mat hall and ornate rooms are highlights. Closed for restoration from 2026.

The Ishikawa Brewery South Bunko Storehouse is a Meiji-era earthen storehouse within the grounds of Ishikawa Brewery, a historic sake producer founded in 1830 in Yokkaichi City, Mie Prefecture. One of 15 structures registered as national Tangible Cultural Properties, this beautifully preserved bunko storehouse features white plaster walls and a cut-stone foundation. Discover the deep traditions of Japanese sake culture alongside the brewery's acclaimed Fukii sake, crafted with ultra-soft water from the Suzuka Mountains.

Discover Ito Ryokan Main Building, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Iga City, Mie Prefecture. This late Meiji-era wooden inn features exquisite coffered ceilings with phoenix paintings, black-lacquered frames, and refined chaya architecture in the heart of Iga Ueno's former entertainment district.

Discover the Former Funaki Bridge, a registered tangible cultural property spanning the pristine Miyagawa River gorge in Mie Prefecture. Built in 1905 with distinctive brick piers and later retrofitted with steel Warren trusses, this historic bridge showcases Japan's Meiji-era engineering heritage.

Explore Japan's first private museum, the Jingu Chokokan, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Ise. Admire Renaissance-style Meiji architecture by Katayama Tokuma, and discover sacred treasures from Ise Grand Shrine's 1,300-year-old Shikinen Sengu ceremony.

A two-story Meiji-period building at Nagatani-en, once a rice granary. Its plaster walls reveal the timber frame as ornament, and its height brings variation to the lane.

A Meiji-period building at Nagatani-en facing Exhibition Room 1, with an earthen-floor interior. Said to have begun as a stable, it serves as a gallery on the grounds.

A Meiji-period guest wing at Nagatani-en, joined to the main house by a roofed corridor and doubling as the passage to the villa. Two rooms open to a garden veranda.

Discover Fukuoka Shōyu-ten, a soy sauce brewery in Iga City, Mie Prefecture, registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property. Explore its century-old cedar vats, rare Kirin-style press, and traditional artisan brewing since 1895.

Built in 1910 by a local forestry magnate in Kihoku Town, Mie Prefecture, the Koueikan is a nationally Registered Tangible Cultural Property showcasing refined Meiji-era Western-style architecture. Its symmetrical facade, weatherboard siding, sash windows, and ornamental carvings illustrate how Western building styles reached rural Japan. Located near the UNESCO World Heritage Kumano Kodo trail and the crystal-clear Choshi River.

Barely 19 square meters, Ryokan Kunrakuso's late-Meiji storehouse is a copper-clad dozo whose board skirting and sea-cucumber plaster join it to the street wall.

Ryokan Kunrakuso's late-Meiji main building, in old Kuwamachi, Iga-Ueno, holds eleven tatami guest rooms with tokonoma, carved transoms and a gazebo-style hall ceiling.

Ryokan Kunrakuso's gate and wall form the street face of a late-Meiji Iga-Ueno inn: a 12-meter wall, 3.3 meters high, a tiled gate, and a black-plastered upper line.

Discover the Former Yamagata Normal School Main Building, an Important Cultural Property in Yamagata City. Built in 1901 in Renaissance style, this elegant wooden structure now serves as an education museum showcasing Japan's educational history from the Edo period to modern times.

Discover the Former Yonezawa Higher Technical School Main Building, an Important Cultural Property in Yonezawa, Yamagata. This stunning Renaissance-style wooden building from 1910 is the birthplace of Japan's rayon industry and a hidden gem of Meiji-era architecture.