Momoyama

Discover the Tsushima Shrine Romon, a 1591 tower gate donated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. This Important Cultural Property in Tsushima City, Aichi blends Momoyama elegance with Japanese-style craftsmanship.

Built in 1606, the main hall of Tobe Shrine is the only shrine building in Nagoya designated a national Important Cultural Property, rich in Momoyama-era carving.

Only four buildings at Nagoya Castle carry Important Cultural Property status. A guide to the three corner turrets and the Omote Ninomon gate, with visiting details.

Two Important Cultural Property gates at Nagoya Castle, built around 1612 in the defensive korai-mon style. Both survived the 1945 air raids that razed the keep.

Hazu Shrine in Nishio City, Aichi, has three Important Cultural Property halls in a row above Mikawa Bay: a main hall of 1580 and two early Edo subsidiary halls.

Discover Ryusenji Niomon, a 1607 Important Cultural Property gate at one of Nagoya's Owari Four Kannon temples. Built in three-bay rōmon style with a kokera-shingled hip-and-gable roof, it has welcomed pilgrims for over four centuries on a hilltop overlooking the Shōnai River.

Tokugawa Ieyasu paid for this hall in 1605 as Kashima's main sanctuary. Hauled to the rear of the precinct in 1619, it survives unlacquered and plain.

The 1577 main hall of Daiho Hachimangu in Shimotsuma, Ibaraki, built by a local castle lord: a tall three-bay hall on thick posts with small, intricate bracketing.

The Main Hall of Hachimangu Shrine in Mito City, Ibaraki Prefecture (popularly Mito Hachimangu) is a National Important Cultural Property built in 1598 by the warlord Satake Yoshinobu. Designed in a Wayō–Karayō hybrid style with an irimoya roof, it was constructed by a team of young craftsmen led by the fifteen-year-old master carpenter Yoshihara Sakutarō. Restored to its original colors and gilding between 1995 and 1999, it preserves the brilliance of late Azuchi-Momoyama architecture in a region where few medieval structures survive.

An octagonal hall at a Tendai temple in Mito, dated by beam inscriptions to 1585, with carvings of local Muromachi character; turned back to face south after 2011.

Okayama Castle Nishite Yagura is the castle's other surviving turret: a small-windowed corner tower built for war around 1600, now inside a closed school's grounds.

Rebuilt in 1612, the Okamaden at Kibitsu Shrine hosts the narukama rite, a fortune read from the sound of a heated cauldron. It was designated in 1980.

Henshoji Temple Tahoto Pagoda, built in 1606, stands alone in Icho Park near Kasaoka Station after its temple moved. See the tiled dome, stone monument and ginkgo.

Rebuilt in 1581 by the Hida warlord Mitsuki Yoritsuna, this Important Cultural Property in Gero, Gifu, is known for the water-summoning carp carved into its eaves.

A National Historic Site in Gifu, this mountain castle was held by three Mori brothers, including the famous page Ranmaru, until its deliberate dismantling in 1601.

390 Momoyama to Edo-period pieces, chiefly Oribe wares, from the Motoyashiki kiln site in Toki, Gifu, an Important Cultural Property since 2013.

Preserved at Entoku-ji Temple in Gifu City, the Rakuichi-Rakuza Seisatsu is a set of four original wooden placards (with one attached) issued by Oda Nobunaga and the Ikeda lords between 1567 and 1584. Posted at the gate of the Kanō market just after Nobunaga renamed Inabayama Castle to Gifu, they survive in remarkable physical form. Designated a Nationally Important Cultural Property in 1993, they are a primary source at the heart of Japan's economic history.

A pair of stone komainu at Hiyoshi Shrine in Gōdo, Gifu, designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan. Donated in 1577 by the Sengoku warlord Fuwa Mitsuharu and carved from the famed blue-green Shakudani stone of Echizen, this slender, inscribed pair is a masterpiece of Momoyama-era sculpture.

A yakuimon gate of about 1609 at Zuiganji in Matsushima, reserved for the emperor, imperial family and lord, with a heavy tiled roof and white taikobei walls.

Zuiganji's 1609 kitchen and office hall in Matsushima, with a smoke-vented gable roof, Momoyama scroll carving and bold beams, joined to the main hall by a corridor.