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.
Completed in 1888 to a design by Yamazoe Kisaburo, this wooden schoolhouse in Tome City became an Important Cultural Property in 1981 and now houses a museum.
The Ebiki Former Soy Sauce Brewery, built in 1892 in Toyoma, Miyagi, shows carpenter Sato Asakichi's orderly triple beams. It is now Ebiki Hall, for group meals.
The Ebiki Workshop is an early Meiji brewing hall between two storehouses in Toyoma, Miyagi. Twin gabled roofs cover one open floor, key to how miso was made.
The Ebiki Main House is a late Meiji home behind the shop in Toyoma, Miyagi, registered as a model of form for its tall profile and a tea-style inner room.
Main house of the 1890s behind the Oimatsu Nagata Brewery shop in Watari, Miyagi: L-shaped, with three sukiya-style reception rooms and an open-roofed family room.
Shop of the 1890s at the Oimatsu Nagata Brewery in Watari, Miyagi, with a shopfront and storehouse wing under one roof and a solid upper front in namako tilework.
Mid-Meiji study hall and priests' quarters of Kofukuji, a Tendai temple in Tome, Miyagi, with a karahafu front and a reception room whose alcove uses coloured glass.
Farmhouse of the early Meiji period in Toyoma, Tome, Miyagi, with a natural slate roof, a raised ventilator and a tall upper floor for raising silkworms.
The Former Kannoya Kanbei Main House, a one-storey Meiji merchant home of c.1889 in Toyoma, Miyagi: four rooms in a row ending in a tokonoma room, open to a garden.
The Former Kannoya Kanbei Grain Storehouse, an earthen store of c.1899 in Toyoma, Miyagi: a torii-shaped upper window, plainer plaster walls, and a roof puzzle.
The Former Kannoya Kanbei Document Storehouse, an 1890 earthen store in Toyoma, Miyagi: a big canopy over the upper window, plastered eaves and namako-kabe tile.
A 1909 soy sauce brewery office in Toyoma, Tome City: a two-story corner townhouse with projecting eaves, board-clad upper floor and beams exposed on its gable.
A late-Meiji soy sauce storehouse in Toyoma, Tome City, with two raised ventilating roofs on its ridge, namako-tiled walls and a traditional roof frame inside.
A 1912 soy sauce storehouse in Toyoma, Tome City: a long single-story earthen building with a separate roof, heavy plaster band and an imitation Western roof frame.
The Former Second Higher School Main Gate on Tohoku University's Katahira Campus in Sendai is an ornamental brick gate designed in 1889 by Ministry of Education architects Yamaguchi Hanroku and Kuru Masamichi. Having survived multiple relocations and earthquake damage, the gate was lovingly restored by alumni to its original location and registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2021.
Built in 1910 among the timber halls of Sendai's Second Higher School, this three-storey brick stack kept books safe from fire. Its English-bond walls still stand.
The Meiji residence of a sake brewery founded in 1790, this 175 m² timber building anchors the Kamuro merchant complex by Furukawa's poetic Odae bridge in Miyagi.
A Meiji-era two-story dozō on the old Ōshū Kaidō in Furukawa, counter house of the Hashihei sake brewery, with white plaster walls and a black cornice band.
A Meiji-era timber shopfront in Furukawa, once the public face of the Hashihei sake brewery (founded 1790). Registered in 2021, it now anchors the Kamuro complex.
A late Meiji storehouse at the back of a Toyoma brewery in Tome City, 48 m², with all-zelkova posts on a 6-shaku module and double-bracketed eaves. Registered 2021.