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.
Wakasa Railway Snow Shed, a 24-metre concrete frame of 1948, shields the track from mountain snow with a sloping roof, in stark contrast to the rockfall shed nearby.
Wakasa Railway Rockfall Shed, a 35-metre concrete gallery of 1955, guards the track with fourteen side arches and an earth-packed roof that cushions falling rock.
Wakasa Railway Wakasa Station Locomotive Turntable is a hand-turned 15-metre steel table of 1930 whose pit takes in water to melt snow; visitors can try turning it.
Wakasa Railway Wakasa Station Water Tower, a 1930 steel tank on a concrete base, watered steam engines beside the turntable and is the symbol of the old terminus.
Wakasa Railway Wakasa Station Former West Switchman's Hut, a 1930 timber hut of 3 square metres, is where staff waited to throw the yard points by hand.
Wakasa Railway Wakasa Station Former East Switchman's Hut is a 1951 rebuild of a 1930 pointsman's hut, matching its western twin save for its clapboard.
Wakasa Railway Wakasa Station Vehicle Shed, a 1930 timber shed with an open gable and its own spur, still houses the track bicycles and carts used on the line.
Wakasa Railway Wakasa Station Building and Platform, the 1930 terminus, pairs a timber building, now also the head office, with a stone platform and trussed roof.
Wakasa Railway Wakasa Station Storeroom and Lamp Room, a 1930 timber hut on the platform, once stored signal lamps and housed the levers that worked the semaphores.
Wakasa Railway Wakasa Station Snow Drainage Channel, a 278-metre concrete trench of 1941, carried shovelled snow out of the terminus yard on running water.
Built in 1927 to electrify the line to Matsue, Nunosaki Substation still feeds Ichibata's trains. Its symmetrical front carries a giant order of pilasters.
Built in 1930, registered in 1996: Ichibata's Izumo Taisha-mae station wears a Secession-style roof, and coloured glass patterns the floor of a working terminus.
The early-Showa tea-garden arbor of the Itohara house, barely three square metres under a cedar-bark roof, where guests paused before a tea gathering.
Built in 1929 at Matsue's Imbe plant, this 683-square-metre concrete slow sand filter bed was registered in 2008 and still filters the city's drinking water today.
Built in 1929, this valve chamber and receiving well is where raw water first enters Matsue's Imbe plant, with a flow-measuring notch and granite coping on its rim.
Built in 1929 as Matsue's Imbe plant grew, this round well gathers filtered water for the reservoirs. Its housing has columns carrying a shallow arched canopy.
Completed in 1929 in Matsue's first waterworks expansion, this 683 m² slow sand filter bed has a well housing with simplified pillars and a row of pilasters on top.
Okuno Shogo Family Residence Wall, Mori, Yasugi: a 1929 concrete garden wall 45 meters long, modeled on a timber fence of posts and rails, with German-style render.
Karakoro Art Studio in Matsue, the former Bank of Japan branch of 1938 by Nagano Uheiji, has a Greek-temple front, a double-height banking hall and a vault.
The former Shimane Prefectural Museum of 1958 by Kikutake Kiyonori lifts a box-like top floor on columns south of Matsue Castle, in white and black to suit the keep.