Meiji

An 1902 colonial ijinkan in Kobe, moved to Sorakuen in 1963 as an Important Cultural Property. Note its arcaded ground floor and acanthus-capped veranda columns.

Discover the Former Kobe Foreign Settlement Building No. 15, the sole surviving structure from Kobe's historic foreign settlement era. This Important Cultural Property, once the American Consulate, features colonial-style architecture, seismic isolation technology, and now houses a stylish restaurant.

Discover Kobayashi House (Former Sharp Residence), a nationally designated Important Cultural Property in Kobe's Kitano Ijinkan district. Built in 1903 for U.S. Consul General Hunter Sharp, this colonial-style mansion known as "Moegi no Yakata" features arabesque staircases, ornate bay windows, and sweeping harbor views.

Completed in 1900 and still in use, Kobe's Gohonmatsu Dam was Japan's first gravity concrete water-supply dam, the core of nine Meiji structures listed in 2006.

The Former Hunter House, located within the Kobe Oji Zoo in Nada Ward, is the largest surviving foreign residence (ijinkan) in Kobe and a nationally designated Important Cultural Property. Originally built around 1889 and extensively renovated by British industrialist Edward Hazlett Hunter in 1907, this Victorian-era timber-and-brick mansion features a stunning colonnade veranda with diamond-lattice windows, marble mantelpieces, teak floors, and English stained glass.

The only Meiji building among the nine, this two-storey annex north-west of the main house holds a small room, bath and privy, and links to the house by a corridor.

The back gate of the Ogawa Family Residence, a small udegimon at the southwest of the grounds. Barely 1.3 meters across, it carries about 13.8 meters of attached wall.

The front gate of the Ogawa Family Residence, a late-Meiji villa in Miki. At the center of the north frontage, it opens onto a garden path up to the main house.

The main house of the Ogawa Family Residence, a late-Meiji villa in Miki with a formal porch and a raised guest chamber, built with fine timber and Kunikane joinery.

The plain maid's quarters of the Ogawa Family Residence, between the main house and storeroom. With a bath and privy, it is a rare late-Meiji record of staff space.

The outer wall enclosing the Ogawa Family Residence, broken on the north by the front gate. It defines the long north-south lot and screens the garden from the street.

The storehouse of the Ogawa Family Residence, a thick-walled dozo near the inner courtyard, built to guard household goods from fire and damp among the courtyard buildings.

The storeroom of the Ogawa Family Residence, on the west boundary beside the maid's quarters, part of the row of service buildings that kept this late-Meiji villa running.

Built in 1907 as the residence of American citizen M.J. Shea, Kitano Monogatarikan is a colonial-style wooden Western house in Kobe's historic Kitano district. After being devastated by the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, it was faithfully reconstructed and registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2003. Now home to the Starbucks Coffee Kobe Kitano Ijinkan Store — Japan's first Starbucks in a registered cultural property — it offers a unique experience blending Meiji-era heritage with modern café culture.

Discover the Former Kaisaki Clinic, a Meiji-era Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Asago City, Hyogo. Explore this evocative medical building nestled within the historic Kuchiganaya silver mining townscape, part of Japan Heritage's Silver Horse Road, Mineral Road.

Built in 1907 by industrialist Muto Sanji on the Maiko coast, this colonial-style Western residence was designed by Okuma Yoshikuni, the architect who later oversaw the construction of Japan's National Diet Building. Now open to the public within Maiko Park, this Registered Tangible Cultural Property features a distinctive circular balcony, natural slate roof, and original Meiji-era furnishings.

Standing in Kobe's Suma Seaside Park, the Former Wadamisaki Lighthouse is Japan's oldest surviving iron lighthouse, built in 1884. Known affectionately as the 'Red Lighthouse of Suma,' this Registered Tangible Cultural Property tells the story of Japan's opening to the world and its early modernization.

Standing directly in front of the east exit of JR Ikuno Station, Kusaka Ryokan is a wooden two-story inn with a three-story wing, built in 1910 and expanded in 1921. As one of only a couple of wooden three-story buildings to have stood along the rail line between Himeji and Kinosaki, it is a remarkably rare survivor and was registered as a Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2004. Its sukiya-style tatami parlors and crane- and cloud-shaped openwork windows offer a vivid glimpse of refined Meiji- and Taisho-era inn architecture in Kuchiganaya, the historic silver mining town of Ikuno.

Kuniumi-no-Yakata, the former Mihara County Office, stands within Awaji Farm Park England Hill in Minamiawaji City, Hyogo Prefecture. Built in 1884 (Meiji 17), it is the oldest surviving county office building in Hyogo and the earliest pseudo-Western (gi-yofu) building on Awaji Island. The wooden two-story structure features a gabled tile roof, clapboard siding with imitation cornerstones, and a striking front porch with paired square and round columns supporting a relief-decorated pediment — all expressions of how Meiji-era Japanese carpenters reinterpreted Western architecture. Damaged in the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, the building was carefully reconstructed at its current site in 2007 and registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2008.

Discover the Kuroda Seiuemon Shoten Miso Storehouse, a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Miki City, Hyogo. Part of an 11-building complex belonging to the oldest surviving hardware wholesaler in Japan's premier tool-making town, this mid-Meiji storehouse offers a rare window into traditional merchant life.