Meiji

Built in 1904 as the first chapel of Kwansei Gakuin, this red-brick Gothic Revival building designed by British architect M. Wignall has survived wartime bombing and a major earthquake to become a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property. Featuring a rare hammer-beam truss roof and grapevine-patterned windows, it now serves as a free-admission literature museum showcasing approximately 124 writers connected to Kobe.

The north wall of the Konishi Family Residence in Amagasaki, Hyogo, runs about 30 metres. Its late-Meiji brick core has a scraped-mortar face and a tiled top.

The 1911 main house of the Konishi Family Residence in Amagasaki, Hyogo, is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property with a broad tiled irimoya roof.

The sunagura storehouse of the Konishi Family Residence in Amagasaki, Hyogo, is a plastered two-storey dozo of about 1904, now a Registered Property.

The barn of the Konishi Family Residence in Amagasaki, Hyogo, is a long single-storey timber building of the late Meiji era, now a Registered Property.

The west stone wall of the Konishi Family Residence in Amagasaki, Hyogo, runs about 50 metres of late-Meiji granite, laid five courses high with capstones.

The gate of the Konishi Family Residence in Amagasaki, Hyogo, is a late-Meiji timber structure with a tiled gable roof, twin doors and a side wicket door.

Discover the Sanda Gakuen Junior High School Main Building, a beautifully preserved 1912 wooden schoolhouse in Hyogo Prefecture. Designed in Stick Style and modeled after England's Eton College, this Registered Tangible Cultural Property continues to function as an active school more than a century after its completion.

The front gate and wall of the Takatsu residence near Himeji, a gabled munemon with white-plaster walls. A frog-leg strut supports the ridge, marking it as formal.

The kitchen and well area of the Takatsu residence near Himeji, an L-shaped service block on the road corner where a kitchen wing meets a well wing.

The tool storehouse of the Takatsu residence near Himeji, an early-Meiji plastered dozo with shippo-pattern namako tilework. It is the oldest of the five buildings.

The main house of the Takatsu family, doctors near Himeji since the late Edo period. Built around 1894, it has a rare kara-hafu entrance gable and a former clinic wing.

The garden gate and wall of the Takatsu residence near Himeji, a bracket-arm gate dividing the forecourt from the reception garden. It is the newest of the five.

A large late-Meiji earthen storehouse on the Nishio grounds in Sasayama, on a granite base with plaster up to the eaves. Once a brewery store, now a museum and gallery.

Zuihō Bridge is a graceful granite drum bridge spanning the sacred pond of Nishinomiya Shrine, Japan's foremost Ebisu shrine, in Hyogo Prefecture. Donated in 1907 by the founder of Hakutaka Sake Brewery and enhanced with bronze balustrades in 1922, this Registered Tangible Cultural Property embodies the deep connection between Nishinomiya's renowned Nada sake-brewing heritage and its most sacred place of worship.

The dosho-sha of Nishinomiya Jinja is a tiny one-bay building on the approach, its four faces filled with diamond lattice. Built in 1904, it is the oldest of the six.

The Chūsōdō at Kameyama Hontokuji Temple in Himeji is a nationally registered cultural property built in 1898 by the Imperial Household Artist Itō Heizaemon IX. Featuring a rare composite design combining hip-and-gable and double-layered pyramidal roofs, this hall is one of the few surviving examples of its kind in Japan.

Beneath Kobe's Mt. Egeyama lies Minatogawa Zuido, Japan's first modern river tunnel, completed in 1901. Its horseshoe-shaped brick vault and granite floor showcase Meiji-era engineering at its finest. Designated a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2019, the tunnel opens to the public on select Saturdays, sometimes hosting evocative mini-concerts in its echoing chambers.

A bracket gate and 12 m of board fence south of the main house's formal entrance, Hirao Family Residence. Black-plastered walls give a composed Meiji approach. Not public.

A formal onarimon and a 27 m riverside wall in the Hirao Family Residence, built to receive honoured guests. White plaster marks its ceremonial air. Not open to the public.