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.
The Butokuden in Niihama City, Ehime Prefecture, is a wooden martial arts hall built in 1938 and registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property. Distinguished by its layered chidori-hafu gable and irimoya-zukuri entrance porch, it is one of Japan's rare surviving prewar Butokuden halls that continues to serve as an active martial arts training facility.
A single-bay gatehouse on the north side of Matsuyama Castle's keep, matching the Sujigane Gate opposite and closing a boxed court with the Shikirimon.
A two-storied turret at the northwest corner of Matsuyama Castle's connected keep, built to match its southern twin and give the west front a rare symmetry.
The formal entrance porch of Matsuyama Castle's keep, just 8.9 square metres, where a curved gable and the Matsudaira hollyhock crest mark the change of purpose.
A long single-storey turret in Matsuyama Castle's keep compound, joining the north corner turret to the inner gate and carrying the formal entrance porch.
A two-storied turret at the southeast corner of Matsuyama Castle's connected keep, twice lost to fire and rebuilt in timber from pre-fire survey drawings.
The single-storey turret closing the west side of Matsuyama Castle's keep, its exposed roof frame and ranked loopholes facing the rear approach to the hill.
A single-bay gatehouse between Matsuyama Castle's two keeps, its posts sheathed in iron plate, its upper floor a passage linking one keep to the other.
The third and last of the gates on the eastern climb to Matsuyama Castle's main courtyard, burned in the air raid of July 1945 and rebuilt in timber in 1972.
A turret already lost before the war, rebuilt in 1972 from the evidence of the masonry and steps alone, its elevation matched to its southern counterpart.
A 24-square-metre turret running south from Matsuyama Castle's Taiko Gate onto a projecting angle of the rampart, covering the ground before the gate.
A two-storied corner turret on the highest rampart at Matsuyama Castle, its lower floor bending to follow the masonry beneath it rather than a square plan.
The single-storey turret linking Matsuyama Castle's small keep to its south corner turret, with heavy earth-clad fire doors set at the top of the stairs.
The largest gate at Matsuyama Castle, rebuilt in timber after the arson of 1949, with a firing slit cut into the floor directly above its heavy doors.
The smaller of the two wings flanking Matsuyama Castle's Tsutsui Gate, forming an irregular gate court together with the doorless Tonashimon to its west.
A single-storey turret running east from Matsuyama Castle's Tsutsui Gate, bending south so that its projecting end block faces the approach path head on.
A two-storied turret closing the southwest corner of Matsuyama Castle's connected keep, set apart from its twin by the wooden railing around the upper floor.
Designed in 1928 by the Ehime prefectural engineer Tomura Hideo, this Matsuyama weather office still works, keeping its tower clock and marble construction tablet.
The chert retaining wall carrying the top terrace at Meisekiji in Seiyo, Ehime, built by named masons in 1930, with a 1944 concrete parapet shaped like a balustrade.
The smallest registered structure at Meisekiji in Seiyo, Ehime, a 5.5-square-metre pavilion of 1937 sheltering a granite basin cut with the words wash the heart.