Meiji

Standing quietly by the Asahi River and Kamibashi Bridge in Katsuyama, Maniwa City, this elegant Meiji-era single-bay gate and its flanking plank wall feature delicate diamond-lattice transoms, a copper-sheet roof, a seven-treasures openwork wall, and a side door. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2014, the structure forms a graceful link in Katsuyama's preserved old highway townscape.

A 1912 timber county office with an entrance tower and a coffered assembly hall, said to be Okayama's only surviving one, now open free as the Shoo Furusato Museum.

Standing quietly on a riverbank in Tamano City, Okayama Prefecture, this wooden single-story building was completed in March 1908 as a branch office of the Ministry of Finance's Monopoly Bureau. Built to oversee salt collection from one of the Seto Inland Sea's most prolific salt-producing regions during the era of Japan's salt monopoly system, it is the only known site where both the wooden office and its accompanying brick document storehouse survive together. Designated a national Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2011.

A rare surviving brick document storehouse from 1908, built for Japan's national salt monopoly in Okayama's Yamada salt-fields. Discover the architecture, history, and visitor information for this Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Tamano City.

A Meiji stone well with a leaning-post shelter at poet Nagase Kiyoko's birthplace in Akaiwa, Okayama, registered in 2017 and still drawn on for a goemon-buro bath.

An early Meiji townhouse in Akaiwa, Okayama, where poet Nagase Kiyoko was born and wrote; it has a diagonal brick floor and four-room plan, registered in 2017.

An early Meiji thatched house built for the first head of Yamate Village, used as its office from 1902 to 1968 and moved in 1972; note the shikidai entrance.

Kyobashi Water Pipe Bridge carries water mains over the Asahi River in Okayama. Built in 1905 and registered in 2005, it is a riveted five-span Warren truss bridge.

At the back of a Meiji kimono merchant's estate in Kurashiki, this 96 m² two-story storehouse has namako-tile walls on a raised stone base. Registered 1996; a salon.

Beside the rice storehouse of a Meiji merchant estate in Kurashiki, this 19 m² gabled storehouse wears two bands of namako tiles on a stone footing. Registered 1996.

Attached to the reception room of a Meiji merchant house in Kurashiki, this 18 m² kura sits on 3 courses of cut stone under wide namako tiling. Registered 1996.

A 43 m roofed wall on the west edge of a Meiji merchant estate in Kurashiki: board-clad for 3 ken on the street, stone and mortar on the boundary. Registered 1996.

The 1874 house and workshop of textile entrepreneur Isozaki Minki in Kurashiki, Okayama, shows his ingenuity in its ramp and sliding shutters; admission is free.

The cotton store of 1888 from the founding of the Kurashiki spinning company in Kurashiki, Okayama, a storehouse-style building, is now a museum in Ivy Square.

Registered as the Torajiro Kojima Memorial Museum, this U-shaped brick warehouse of 1906 in Kurashiki was built for the spinning mill, with bold framed doorways.

Konko Gakuen Memorial Hall in Asakuchi is a 1904 timber assembly hall, moved in 1956 and registered in 2014, mixing Japanese and Western design under a hipped roof.

Saidaiji Gooshoden Inner Hall, built 1869 on a stone embankment in Okayama, packs a veranda and dense carving into 9.2 square meters. Registered in 2017.

Saidaiji Gooshoden Main Hall, Tsuriden and Worship Hall, built by Oku carpenters in 1880 in Okayama, leaves its roof framing exposed. Registered in 2017.

This 1909 bank in Tsuyama, Okayama looks like carved stone but is entirely timber, its Renaissance orders worked in wood. Now a free folk craft museum.

The east storehouse of the Sato Family Residence is a late-Edo tool store, the smallest of its four registered plastered buildings. Registered in 2019.