Meiji

Adjoining the Middle Storehouse, the 1877 East Storehouse is the largest of the group: a long soy-sauce brewing warehouse with shuttered windows on its south gable.

On the southern edge of the grounds, the 1877 South Storehouse is a low earthen store whose eastern half held the koji room where the brewery's fermentation once began.

Standing in the wooded grounds of Karuizawa Taliesin beside Lake Shiozawa in Nagano Prefecture, the Meiji 44 Hall is a registered National Tangible Cultural Property—a careful relocation and restoration of the original Karuizawa Post Office built in 1911. Designed by railway carpenter Koda Ryokichi, this two-story wooden Western-style building features a strictly symmetrical facade, hipped tile roof, and the iconic mint-green German-style lap siding restored to its original Meiji-era color. Today it houses Restaurant Sonett on the ground floor and the Fukazawa Koko Wild Flower Museum on the second floor.

Built in 1907 on the ruins of Tottori Castle to welcome Crown Prince Yoshihito (later Emperor Taishō), Jinpukaku is a gleaming white wooden villa designed in the French Renaissance style by Katayama Tōkuma, Meiji Japan's leading court architect. Designated a National Important Cultural Property, it is celebrated as one of the finest Western-style buildings in the Chūgoku region, featuring a famous column-free spiral staircase and sweeping views over the Hōryū-in Garden.

Discover the Iida Family Main House, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property nestled in Shikano, Tottori. Explore this traditional Japanese residence that preserves the architectural heritage of a charming castle town.

The Ikuta Family Residence Main House in Nanbu Town, Tottori Prefecture, is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property built in 1902. Discover the architectural beauty of this Meiji-era masterpiece, featuring impressive exposed beam work, delicate kumiko transom lattice, and an elegant main reception room with fine timbers.

Sugar was worth a fireproof building of its own. This late Meiji storehouse in Sakaiminato holds an earthen floor and, unexpectedly, a Western-style room.

Eighteen metres of frontage on the Sakai Channel road. This early Meiji townhouse keeps its plastered half-storey and insect-cage windows, a rare brewer's house.

A two-storey earthen-walled storehouse turns its gable to the road, closing the street front beside the Omotani house in Sakaiminato. Iron doors, notched battens.

Kiya Ryokan is a nationally registered tangible cultural property in Misasa, Tottori Prefecture. Founded in 1868, this wooden inn preserves Meiji, Taisho, and Showa-era architecture alongside rare foot-emerging radium hot springs and a traditional ondoru bath.

The Gallery Building of the Shiotani Teiko Memorial Photo Gallery in Kotoura Town, Tottori Prefecture, is a registered Tangible Cultural Property originally built in 1874 as a merchant storehouse and later converted into a photography studio by Teiko Shiotani, a pioneer of Japanese art photography. This unique cultural heritage site offers visitors an opportunity to experience both Meiji-era storehouse architecture and the legacy of a world-renowned photographer.

The 1896 Kanayago shrine of the Itohara house, barely 0.9 square metres, enshrining the deity of ironmaking revered by tatara smelters. Its smallest registered building.

The late-Meiji enclosure wall of the Itohara house, a timber wall with tiled coping about 36 metres long, tying the ceremonial gate and stone pillars into one frontage.

The late-Meiji reception rooms of the Itohara house, remodelled in 1936, where the lord of Matsue was received. The family kept tea utensils of the tea-master lord Fumai.

The 1876 south storehouse of the Itohara house, earliest dated of its buildings. A two-storey white-plastered dozo of about 193 square metres, largest of its stores.

The late-Meiji stone gate pillars of the Itohara house, framing an opening about 3.7 metres wide, the everyday counterpart to its timber ceremonial gate.

Standing on the grounds of Shimane Prefectural Taisha High School near Izumo Taisha Grand Shrine, Inasa Kaikan is the former 1902 auditorium of Shimane Prefectural Third Middle School. A nationally Registered Tangible Cultural Property, it showcases pseudo-Western Meiji school architecture with clapboard siding, sash windows, and a distinctive octagonal entrance porch preserved from the original main building.

The Former Gōtsu Post Office, located along the Tenryō Gōtsu Honmachi Iraka Kaidō heritage streetscape in Shimane Prefecture, is a two-story wooden Western-influenced building constructed around 1887 by a local timber merchant who modeled it after trading houses in Kobe. With its white plaster walls, simulated cornerstones, and blue-painted pillars, it is one of Japan's oldest surviving post office buildings and was registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2009.

The Meiji rice storehouse at Shimomori Brewery in Tsuwano held rice for sake. Its white gable bears a plaster kanko-dori rooster, an old symbol of peaceful rule.

At 444 square metres, the former sake storehouse is the largest at Shimomori Brewery in Tsuwano. Its roofs, layered by repeated additions, embody sake-making itself.