Shōwa
昭和Browse Japan’s cultural heritage from the Shōwa period (1926 – 1989). Filter by prefecture, type, and keyword, with concise stories, maps, and travel tips.
Tomobayashi no Uji Shrine Main Hall, a 1940 Kasuga-style sanctuary three bays wide in unpainted Taiwanese cypress, seen through its lattice wall; why it was listed.
Tomobayashi no Uji Shrine Gate and Lattice Wall, 1940: a 55-meter openwork fence on kerbstones enclosing the main hall, with a gabled gate and carved kaerumata.
Tomobayashi no Uji Shrine Wakamiya Hachimangu Hall, built in 1940 as a school hoanden and moved here: a rare wooden shinmei-style hall with upright ridge posts.
The 1929 detached wing of the Nishiyama Family Residence in Toyonaka looks through wide glass doors onto Seiryutei and has a tea room and waiting arbor by Okada.
The Nishiyama Family Residence Connecting Corridor in Toyonaka, about 1940, opens to the garden on one side, with a woven ceiling and a pebble-and-tile floor.
A 1928 church in Shinsaibashi, Osaka, built with Nakamura Mamoru's concrete block system. Registered in 2009; note the grand stair and 6-pillar entrance.
A 1929 concrete church facing Osaka Tenmangu Shrine, registered in 2015. Its sanctuary has pierced elliptical arch beams and a 2021 Garnier pipe organ.
Murano Togo's 1928 concrete church tower in Abeno, Osaka, registered in 2025, with circle-and-cross openwork and the curving 1981 chapel he designed behind it.
Early Showa yakuimon gate, 1.4 m wide, atop steps in the stone wall at the back of a former cotton merchant's house in Yao, Osaka, between rice storehouse and barn.
Early Showa barn at a former cotton merchant's house in Yao, Osaka, with doors at each end under an open lean-to and exposed-frame plaster walls. Listed 2019.
The northern gate of an Osaka acupuncture compound, built around 1938 with copper tiles, a slatted transom and a coffered ceiling behind. Registered in 2019.
Built in 1934 as an office and residence when an Osaka bottle-cap maker moved to Kitatsumori, with a coffered reception room and an upstairs tatami room.
A one-story office of about 1937 at an Osaka bottle-cap factory, fronted in scratch tile and split stone, with a staff canteen behind and a shrine-topped time clock.
A 207-square-meter timber store of about 1934 at an Osaka bottle-cap factory, used for raw materials until the late 1980s, with built-in shelves and a wagoya roof.
A 309-square-meter timber workshop built in 1934 at an Osaka bottle-cap factory, with a hybrid wagoya and truss roof frame under a wide daylighting clerestory.
A 9.4-square-meter concrete structure hidden behind a garden mound at an Osaka bottle-cap factory, said to be a wartime shelter and later made into a lavatory.
The 1937 timber head office of an Osaka bottle-cap maker, faced in cream tile under French-tile canopies, still keeps its original reception room and ceiling fans.
A 3-square-meter clapboard gatehouse of about 1937 at an Osaka bottle-cap factory, with arched windows outside and a tatami floor and reception counter within.
Reinforced-concrete gateposts of about 1937 at an Osaka bottle-cap factory, with oval caps, pebble-washed surfaces and lamp windows bearing the company crest.
A clapboard building of about 1937 at an Osaka bottle-cap factory, with a jerkinhead roof, bracketed window canopies and high windows hinting at a former workshop.