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 1941 in Tamba City, Hyogo, this guest wing pairs a storehouse-like volume with a glazed terrace and mixes tatami and western rooms. Registered 2007.
Running 45 metres along the street in Tamba City, Hyogo, this 3.3-metre timber wall of cedar boarding and lime plaster fronts the Kotsuzumi brewery. Registered 2007.
Early Showa garden wall at Himeji's literature museum: 64 m of large natural stones laid irregularly, with some brick and a hedge on top. Registered 2009.
Early Showa bracket-arm gate at Himeji's literature museum, moved here in 1991, with a deep convex copper roof, lattice doors and carved beams. Registered 2009.
The Honjuji Temple Main Hall above Kinosaki Onsen, Hyogo, built in 1931, has coffered ceilings throughout and a dragon on its porch by carvers of the Shikama school.
A 27-square-metre timber barn in Maiko Park, Kobe, with a two-storey veranda across its south face. Registered in 2001, it stands inside the estate's closed zone.
Kobe's Kitano is a slope, and this 53-metre boundary of 1951 is registered in its own right: diagonal stonework, white concrete, round tile coping, a curved corner.
A 1951 wooden house in Kobe's Kitano: white stucco, pink louvered shutters, a Spanish-tiled hipped roof over a partial basement. Registered in 2012; exterior only.
A 1928 reinforced concrete gate with four posts on the Nitta estate in Nishinomiya, set back from the road to frame the approach to the Onzan Memorial Hall villa.
A 1928 concrete storehouse on the Nitta estate in Nishinomiya, north of the villa, designed by Kigo Shichiro to match the main house of the Onzan Memorial Hall.
A 151-meter reinforced concrete wall around the Nitta estate in Nishinomiya, its washed-aggregate finish suiting the Western-style villa of the Onzan Memorial Hall.
Originally the servants' quarters of the Nitta estate in Nishinomiya, this 1928 wooden outbuilding by architect Kigo Shichiro is part of the Onzan Memorial Hall.
A wartime reinforced concrete air-raid shelter on the Nitta estate in Nishinomiya, part of the Onzan Memorial Hall, with double blast doors and a domed ceiling.
A 1928 Spanish-style villa in Nishinomiya, home of industrialist Nitta Chojiro, founder of Matsuyama University's forerunner, designed by Kigo Shichiro.
Mikage Public Hall of 1933 in Kobe, built with a gift from Kano Jihei to designs by Shimizu Eiji, gathers varied forms on a modernist base at the heart of Mikage.
The west building of Mikiya in Kinosaki Onsen, Hyogo, built in 1927, is a two-storey inn wing joined to the east building, from the rebuilding after the 1925 quake.
The east building of Mikiya in Kinosaki Onsen, Hyogo, built in 1927, is a three-storey timber inn with a banquet hall from the rebuilding after the 1925 quake.
The 1930 Kōshien Hotel by Frank Lloyd Wright's protégé Endō Arata is now a Mukogawa Women's University campus and registered cultural property in Hyōgo.
Artist Watanuki Kōsuke's 1969 Kobe tea room. A ceramic cookpot crowns its pyramid roof; inside, an umbrella ceiling, bamboo-screen shoji, and a sunken hearth depart from every rule of orthodox tea architecture. Registered Cultural Property since 2023.
Momoshima Bridge is a small reinforced concrete pedestrian bridge across the Otani River in the heart of Kinosaki Onsen, Toyooka City, Hyogo Prefecture. Built in December 1926 as part of the town's recovery from the 1925 North Tajima Earthquake, its distinctive bow-shaped profile, lantern-topped pillars, and four small giboshi finials blend modern engineering with traditional Japanese aesthetics. It was registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2015 and remains an emblem of Kinosaki's iconic streetscape.