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.
Completed in 1937, this is the tallest of five stone-faced erosion-control dams on the upper Shimizu River. A square weep hole pierces the base of its spillway.
Completed in 1939, this low stone dam anchors the top of the Shimizu River group above Kurayoshi. Its weathered masonry sinks into a forest replanted after erosion.
Completed in 1938 and 80 metres long, this is the longest Shimizu River dam. A carved stone plaque on its left abutment bears the crest of the Home Ministry.
The lowest of the Shimizu River dams, completed in 1938. An irrigation channel through its left abutment lets one wall both hold back flood sediment and feed the fields.
The last of the Shimizu River dams, completed in 1944 at a bend in the stream. Its spillway is shifted aside to ease the current, with Mt. Hiruzen on the horizon.
Completed in 1951 on the upper Hiketa River in Tottori, Somagoya Arch Dam is a stone-faced concrete sabo dam, 24 metres long and 10 metres high. Registered in 2004.
The 1951 founder's hall of Daijuji in Yazu, Tottori, registered in 2024, linked by a corridor to the main hall and enshrining the tablets of every abbot.
The 1954 bell tower of Daijuji in Yazu, Tottori, registered in 2024, built to mark the recasting of a bell given up in wartime, with inward-leaning columns.
The 1955 Zen training hall of Daijuji in Yazu, Tottori, registered in 2024, once said to be the only specialist training hall in the Chugoku region.
The bell tower of Daisenji on Mount Daisen, Tottori, built in 1950 beside the main hall, leans its posts inward and carries crossed brackets in a medieval manner.
The main hall of Daisenji on Mount Daisen, Tottori, rebuilt in 1951 after a fire in 1928, keeps a medieval plan under a pyramidal roof with richly designed carving.
An early-Showa storehouse, middle of three behind a Tottori merchant house, registered in 2007. Entered from its long side, it breaks the line of gabled neighbours.
An early-Showa side gate beside a Tottori merchant house, registered in 2007. Its roof stretches out like a plastered wall and uses the same tiles as the house.
The Honmachi fire station of 1941 on the Chizu highway in Tottori, a clapboarded house with a lookout tower, sends a ladder up its front and through the gable.
The Yamagata Elementary School in Chizu, Tottori, an 81-metre timber building of 1942 by the Kitamata River, runs a band of windows along its whole west side.
The Tokoen hotel at Kaike Onsen, Yonago, designed by Kikutake Kiyonori in 1964, hangs its guest floors from six columns, a high point of Metabolist design.
Nagata Shrine Prayer Hall, built in 1959, is the newest and largest of the eight registered buildings; its bowed porch was taken from the 1924 shrine office in 2007.
The Nagata Shrine Shinmon Gate is a 1935 hinoki yakuimon, 3.3 metres wide, with round main posts and no doors, whose deep roof gives the approach a solemn frame.
The Nagata Shrine Lattice Fence runs 41 metres round the main hall in Tottori: a 1932 hinoki screen of diamond-section slats on a three-step stone base.
Nagata Shrine Temizusha is a 1929 open pavilion roofed in tile, the only one of the eight, sheltering a stone basin first set up at the shrine's old site in 1778.