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.
Designed by Takeda Goichi in 1930 for a teacher of flower arrangement, this Ashiya house puts a tea room and a fireplace under one Spanish tile roof. Closed.
No crawl entrance, only a high kijinguchi: this small Nishinomiya tea house follows the Fumai school of Matsue, a lineage rarely built in the Kansai region.
Tea-house scholar Okada Takao designed this 331-square-metre Nishinomiya house, which pivots from Spanish tile to tatami. Registered property, open by booking.
Japanese storehouses are normally earthen-walled; this one in Nishinomiya is reinforced concrete, with a tatami antechamber and a darkroom set at the front.
Ashida Family Residence Miso Storehouse, a small early Showa store behind a thatched farmhouse in Tanba, Hyogo, with a cement-tile roof and three round vents.
Ashida Family Residence Toilet, an early Showa outhouse in Tanba, Hyogo, described as a kami-setchin, with a urinal and stall behind a hinged and a sliding door.
A narrow 1932 firewood shed in the Hirao estate, Morio, Toyooka: 7.9 by 2.3 metres, boarded on three sides with a wide open front, part of a U-shaped farmyard group.
An early Showa barn in the Hirao estate, Morio, Toyooka: 5.6 by 4.3 metres, an airy henhouse at the south end and a cattle shed at the north, over a passage.
An early Showa compost shed stepping down from the tatsugoya shed in the Hirao estate, Morio, Toyooka: a clay-walled front, clapboard sides and sliding doors.
A 1931 storehouse joined to the Hirao main house in Morio, Toyooka: 8 bays, 2 storeys, red tiles, 102 m², and a main vault entered only through the central room.
An early Showa miniature shrine on the garden hill behind the Hirao guest house in Morio, Toyooka: a one-bay nagare-style shrine on a stone base in the garden.
An early Showa storehouse on the northern edge of the Hirao estate in Morio, Toyooka: 2 storeys under a floating roof, part of a U-shaped group around a farmyard.
An early Showa water tower beside the Hirao well house in Morio, Toyooka: a two-tier angle-iron frame with an arched lower bay, topped by a sheet-steel tank.
An early Showa clay wall enclosing the garden of the Hirao main house in Morio, Toyooka: 19 metres on a rubble base, exposed posts inside and black plaster outside.
An early Showa partition between the Hirao main house and barn in Morio, Toyooka: 3.6 metres with a sliding door, dividing the household side from the work yard.
An early Showa board fence along the inner garden of the Hirao guest house in Morio, Toyooka: 28 metres of vertical boarding on a low rubble retaining wall.
An early Showa wall and gate on the north side of the Hirao inner garden in Morio, Toyooka: 25 metres of boarding on a stone footing and a 1.8-metre bracketed gate.
A 1928 single-bay nagare-style shrine of just 1.0 m² west of Nagata Shrine's main hall in Kobe, paired with the Amaterasu Shrine to the east. Registered 2002.
A 1936 drum house at Tomari Shrine in Kakogawa, Hyogo, registered in 2008, with a large north doorway, earthen walls clad in charred boards and a two-form roof.
A 1961 annex joined to the 1936 main block of the Abashiri City Museum in Hokkaido. Tanoue Yoshiya designed both; the newer one shows his postwar manner.